December 18, 2023

A total of 36 nominations have been submitted for the 2023 Making a Difference Awards. There will be winners in each of the following categories:

• Behind the Scenes
• Innovation Award
• Legacy Award
• Outstanding Leader
• Rookie Award
• Serving Others
• Unsung Hero

A list of nominees is available on the Staff Council website. Everyone is invited to a reception honoring the nominees. The reception is scheduled from 2-3:30 p.m. on Jan. 9 in the Memorial Union Ballroom. The recipients for each category will be announced at the reception.

The Financial Aid office will be closed from 12-2 p.m. on Thursday (Dec. 21) for our holiday party. Questions during this time can be emailed to finaid@mtu.edu.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

The A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum will be closed from Sunday (Dec. 24) through Jan. 8 for winter break. We will reopen on Jan. 9, resuming regular business hours: Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Admission to the museum for Michigan Tech students, staff and faculty is waived with a Tech ID.

Happy Holidays!

In observance of the Christmas and New Year's holidays, and of the University seasonal days Dec. 27, 28 and 29, the last Tech Today of 2023 will be published Friday (Dec. 22).

Tech Today will resume on Jan. 3. To be included in the Jan. 3 edition of Tech Today, items must be submitted by noon on Friday using our Submit a Story form.

Event Details:

• What: CTL: Instructor Appreciation Event
• When: Friday, Jan. 5, from 2-4 p.m.
• Where: Library 219

We are delighted to invite Michigan Tech instructors and academic staff to the upcoming Instructor Appreciation Event hosted by the William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). Join us on Jan. 5, anytime between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., at the CTL offices in the Van Pelt and Opie Library (Library 219).

Our event is designed with an open-house vibe, allowing you the flexibility to drop in whenever it suits your schedule. Take this opportunity to meet the fantastic CTL team, explore the resources and services they offer, tour the Testing Center and indulge in some delightful refreshments.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just curious about what we do, we’d love to have you there. Please visit the Center for Teaching and Learning Blog for more details.

For any questions or to discuss accessibility requests, feel free to give us a call at 906-487-3000.

Michigan Tech’s metalcasting program recently received a certification score of 97% and a six-year certification from the Foundry Educational Foundation (FEF).

Michigan Tech is consistently ranked as one of the top foundry education programs in the country, earning a score of 94% in 2017 — at the time, MTU was the first program to earn the longest six-year renewal timeframe.

The Tech foundry program is one of the few foundry metallurgy programs in the country to offer a Bachelor of Science, graduate-level research and in-demand industry-sponsored research. The program owes its success to a core team of committed faculty and staff in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Institute of Materials Processing.

Last Tuesday (Dec. 12), 800 middle school students from the western Upper Peninsula came to Michigan Tech's campus to attend the OneUP Copper Trail Festival. Students engaged with over 60 hands-on STEM demonstrations and learned about in-demand careers and educational opportunities.

The Center for Educational Outreach would like to thank all the departments, student organizations and Michigan Tech faculty, staff and students who volunteered their time to make this event a success! The event was also supported by dozens of external exhibitors, including local businesses and nonprofit organizations.

This event was the first of two in this year’s OneUP Mind Trekkers tour, a collaboration between Michigan Tech, Upper Peninsula Michigan Works! and the MiSTEM Network. Our next event in the series will take place April 11 at Bay College in Escanaba, Michigan. Academic departments are invited to join us as exhibitors to showcase educational opportunities. To learn more, please reach out to us at outreach@mtu.edu.

Michigan Tech hockey first-year forward Max Koskipirtti has been named to Team Finland's training camp roster for the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship, being held in Gothenburg, Sweden, from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5.

Koskipirtti, a native of Espoo, Finland, has skated in all 19 games for the Huskies this season at center. He has tallied three goals and nine assists and is a plus-4. Koskipirtti scored the game-winning goal at Minnesota State on Nov. 25 and had a pair of assists against Augustana on Nov. 3.

Team Finland is playing two training camp games against Slovakia on Tuesday (Dec. 19) and the Czech Republic on Thursday (Dec. 21). The team's final roster will be named after the training camp games.

Read more at Michigan Tech Athletics.

Ruth Archer, director of continuous improvement, recently attended the 2023 Lean in Higher Education International Conference in San Diego, California.

As chair of the Lean Higher Education (HE) Americas Division, she joined the Lean HE Global chairs from Europe and Asia/Pacific in a panel discussion on the vision and path forward for Lean HE. The panel discussed the challenges facing Lean in higher education and innovative ideas for the evolution of Lean HE.

Archer was also invited to deliver a workshop on the Lean fundamentals of processes, flow and waste — a popular workshop she developed for Michigan Tech — and a session on using Lean HE best practices to create goals and develop tactics for advancing Lean in higher ed institutions.

Lean HE Global’s vision is that every HE institution knows and applies Lean as appropriate to their context and needs, bringing about increased effectiveness and efficiency in support of the transformative power of higher education.

CTL Technical Workshop: Getting Started with iClicker Cloud

Save the Date: The Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) will host a technical workshop on Jan. 4 from 2-3 p.m. to introduce instructors to iClicker Cloud software.

iClicker Cloud helps instructors engage with their students in the classroom by asking polling questions that can promote discussion, identify areas of confusion and generate questions. Michigan Tech has a campus site license for iClicker Cloud, so instructors can use this tool at no additional cost to their students.

In this CTL technical workshop, we’ll review how to get started using iClicker Cloud in your classroom. We’ll review how to set up your instructor account and iClicker Groups, make custom course settings to meet your needs, and integrate the course with your Canvas course.

Register for the workshop — make plans to join us Jan. 4 from 2-3 p.m.

The workshop location will be announced closer to the event date.

Contact the CTL at elearning@mtu.edu with any questions about this workshop or using iClicker Cloud in your class.

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PhD Defense: Tori Reeder, HU

Join Tori Reeder at her Ph.D. dissertation defense today (Dec. 18) at 11 a.m. This defense will be held online only. Virtual attendance is invited via Zoom.

Reeder's dissertation is titled "An examination of scientific and technical communication for forensic engineering and forensic pathology."

From the abstract:
Police communication sits at the unique intersection of risk communication, scientific and technical communication, and medical communication, as seen in forensic reports. In this dissertation, I examine the communicative underpinnings of forensic pathology and forensic engineering reports. I argue that there is not only an inherent link between the unpredictability of a written text and the reception of said text by both its intended and unintended audience, but also a link to the broader socio-cultural contexts. I will examine an atypical forensic pathology report (autopsy report) of George Floyd, a more standard forensic pathology report of an inmate who died of lethal injection, John Grant, and a standard forensic engineering report of a fatal collision. Using Voyant Tools, the analysis will show the link between readability index and unpredictability of a text as well as demonstrate how the surrounding, rather charged socio-cultural contexts can have an impact on the text’s underlying structure. Unpredictability will be defined as and examined as a key facet because that is how textual analysis measures a readability index. Through my analysis, building on Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver’s understanding of randomness and unpredictability as entropy in a system, I found that the higher the unpredictability (entropy) in a written communication system, the lower the readability index. Unpredictability in a text can increase noise and contribute to the loss of information in a communicative system. This is especially important as the genre of the forensic report is deeply embedded in the moral economies of police science. It is also deeply impacted by the seeming necessity to remain objective in reports that are intrinsically human centered.

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MTU Wellness 360 Reminder

Remember to complete your MTU Wellness 360 Incentive 2023 Checklist Google form with the activities you completed between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2023, to earn up to $450 in health incentives for benefits-eligible employees.

Jan. 9 at 5 p.m. is the deadline to submit your MTU Wellness 360 Incentive 2023 Checklist for the 2023 reporting period. The 2023 payout incentives will be available in late February.

Questions? Contact the Benefits Office at hr-help@mtu.edu or call 906-487-2517.

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Winter Break HuskiesFit Classes

Join HuskiesFit instructors Allison, Angela and Ruby for some much-needed self-care over winter break with the following classes.

• Monday, Dec. 18, 5-5:50 p.m. — Zumba
• Tuesday, Dec. 19, 12-12:50 p.m. — CIRCL Mobility
• Tuesday, Dec. 19, 5-5:50 p.m. — Zumba Toning
• Wednesday, Dec. 20, 5-5:50 p.m. — Belly Dance
• Thursday, Dec. 21, 5-5:50 p.m. — Zumba Gold
• Friday, Dec. 22, 12-12:50 p.m. — Taylor’s Version Power Flow Yoga (open to ages 13 years and older!)
• Tuesday, Jan. 2, 12-12:50 p.m. — CIRCL Mobility
• Thursday, Jan. 4, 12-12:50 p.m. — Power Vinyasa Flow Yoga
• Friday, Jan. 5, 12-12:50 p.m. — CIRCL Mobility

These classes are included in the HuskiesFit Punch Card. Day passes are also available. See individual class pages at HuskiesFit Adult Programs for more information.

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Call for Submissions: 2024 Undergraduate Research & Scholarship Symposium

Michigan Tech’s Pavlis Honors College invites undergraduate researchers and scholars from all colleges to submit for presentation at the 2024 Undergraduate Research & Scholarship Symposium (URSS).

The symposium allows undergraduate students to present posters describing completed or ongoing research and receive feedback from faculty judges. This event is an excellent learning experience and showcases the great undergraduate research and scholarship occurring at Michigan Tech.

The URSS will be held March 22 in the Rozsa Lobby. Coinciding with Michigan Tech’s Preview Day, the symposium is a great way to share the exciting research projects from across campus with high school students considering attending Michigan Tech.

Research submissions are due Feb. 6 at 11:59 p.m; please encourage your students to register and submit their work. To submit, they should visit the URSS website and follow the instructions provided. It is recommended that applicants save their text in a document and copy the required information into the submission form.

Submissions will be reviewed by Pavlis Honors College staff and confirmation of acceptance will be sent by March 1. Please note: If more submissions are received than space in the Rozsa Lobby allows, it is possible some will not be accepted.

Questions can be directed to Chris Hohnholt at cahohnho@mtu.edu. We look forward to seeing your submissions and presentations!

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SDC Winter Break Schedule

The Student Development Complex (SDC) is observing reduced building hours over the winter break. The reduced hours began last Friday (Dec. 15) and will continue through Jan. 7.

Please Note: The SDC will be closed on the following dates:

• Sunday, Dec. 24, and Monday, Dec. 25 (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day)
• Sunday, Dec. 31, and Monday, Jan. 1 (New Year's Eve and New Year's Day)

Spring semester hours will begin on Jan. 8.

View the SDC Winter Break Schedule PDF.

Thank you,

Michigan Tech Athletics & Recreation

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

PhD Defense: Tori Reeder

Monday, December 18, 11 a.m.–12 p.m.

Rhetoric, Theory and Culture Advisor: Andrew Fiss EXAMINATION OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION FORENSIC ENGINEERING AND FORENSIC PATHOLOGY. Attend Virtually:...