January 10, 2025

This week the Van Pelt and Opie Library and Campus Store celebrate textbook affordability by promoting Course Reserve and a collaborative project between our two units that maintains a searchable list of course materials in the library’s collections.

There are three ways departments and instructors can further our mission to make a Michigan Tech education more affordable:

1. Meet course material adoption deadlines. The fall 2025 deadline is June 24.
2. Utilize Course Reserve. Instructors may bring a copy of their textbooks to the library for students to access freely. The Course Reserve Request form is available to facilitate the process.
3. Search the library’s catalog. Notify the library and Campus Store when you find your course materials so that they are added to Course Reserve.

On behalf of the library and Campus Store, have a great semester!

Congratulations to all of our 2024 Making A Difference Award nominees and winners, who were honored at an awards program on Jan. 7 in the Memorial Union Ballroom.

The 2024 award winners are:

• Behind the Scenes: Dawn Pichette, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Innovation Award: Jennifer (Jung) Lucas, Advancement and Alumni Engagement
• Legacy Award: Vicky Roy, College of Computing
• Outstanding Leader: Danielle Meirow, Student Leadership and Involvement
• Rookie Award: Michael Reay, Vice President for Research – Research Integrity
• Serving Others: Amie Ledgerwood – Provost's Office
• Unsung Hero: Katy Ellenich, Humanities

To read the full story featuring the nominations and comments about the winners, visit the Staff Council website.

Staff Council would like to extend a thank-you to those who nominated an employee or wrote a letter of support. Through your efforts and thoughtfulness, we are able to celebrate these staff members. And thank you to this year’s judges and committee members: Samantha Butkovich, Amy Hjerstedt, Michael Kowalczyk, Madeline Mercado Voelker, Shanda Miller, Jari Sague and Laurie Stark. A special thanks to the President's Office for providing the award each winner will receive.

The Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is excited to begin another year of the Deans’ Teaching Showcase, featuring outstanding instructors from across campus.

This week, College of Sciences and Arts Dean LaReesa Wolfenbarger has selected Oren Abeles, an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition in the Department of Humanities. Abeles will also be recognized at an end-of-term event with other showcase members and is a candidate for the CTL Instructional Award Series.

Abeles, whose scholarly work applies rhetorical concepts and frameworks to scientific texts, technical objects and natural phenomena, has demonstrated excellence and innovation in the teaching of rhetoric to students of all majors at Michigan Tech. When students enter his classroom, they are encouraged to bring their prior experiences in science and technology and consider how the study of rhetoric can provide unique critical insights into these fields.

Colleagues have noted that Abeles’ approach to teaching is “rigorous, engaging, yet challenging. He successfully brings his students along by holding their attention and focusing them on textual analysis and reflections on their everyday life.”

Whether teaching a course of 35 or 85, Abeles encourages and supports student interaction and active learning. Through the creative use of group work, peer writing workshops and reflective composition assignments, he asks students to consider the way rhetorical theory elucidates students’ social interactions, with both their classmates and technologies.

Recently, Abeles has incorporated generative artificial intelligence into his courses, developing in-class activities and writing assignments that encourage students to experiment with the tools and consider them from a critical, rhetorical perspective. As early as spring 2023 (just a couple of months after the public release of ChatGPT), Abeles asked students in his Intro to Rhetoric course to join him in experimenting with this new tool, developing critical frameworks for considering the use of generative AI in diverse contexts.

In the current iteration of these assignments, Abeles’ students work with both their classmates and Anthropic’s AI Claude to develop and revise writing assignments on the nature of creativity. Students both interact with AI and consider how its assistance compares to the social learning interactions that they have with each other. The result provides students with a deeper understanding of what AI can do and what it cannot. Rather than dismissing the technology as lacking subjectivity or a “human touch,” students become aware that subjectivity and humanity is as much a relational interaction as it is quality possessed by individual intelligences. Students learn to appreciate the precision and efficiency of AI while they also become more committed to the uniquely interpersonal growth that comes from communicating with their classmates.

Maria Bergstrom, associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Sciences and Arts, noted that teaching contributions from Abeles and other faculty in the humanities have an impact on all undergraduate students. “At Michigan Tech, we go beyond teaching technical skills and specific disciplinary content to engage students in critical reflection on how we communicate about science and technology,” she said. “By using critical frameworks to reflect on their practices and assumptions, students develop the tools to become more effective and ethical professionals in their fields.”

The Vice President for Research Office is accepting nominations for both the Bhakta Rath Research Award and the Michigan Tech Research Award.

The Bhakta Rath Research Award offers an opportunity to promote and reward excellence in scientific and engineering research in the fields of physical and natural sciences and engineering. For complete submission guidelines, visit our Bhakta Rath Research Award page.

The Michigan Tech Research Award offers an opportunity for an individual to be recognized for outstanding achievements in research. For complete submission guidelines, visit our Michigan Tech Research Award page.

Nominations for both must be submitted electronically in PDF format, per the guidelines, no later than 4 p.m. on March 6.

All nominations must be sent to Natasha Chopp at nichopp@mtu.edu.

Please join the Graduate School in congratulating Michigan Tech's Spring 2025 Finishing Fellows. Awardees will be recognized daily in Tech Today through Jan. 17.

Kazeem Kareem is a Ph.D. candidate exploring his passion for statistical modeling and analysis in Michigan Tech’s Statistics program. His research focuses on computational statistics, particularly developing novel frameworks for factor analysis and dimensionality reduction, and model-based clustering. He is working on designing innovative algorithms that simultaneously cluster high-dimensional data and reduce its dimensions — tools with wide applications, from understanding complex biological systems to addressing societal challenges in climate and public health.

Read more about Kareem’s journey at Michigan Tech on the Graduate School Newsblog.

Please join the Graduate School in congratulating Michigan Tech's Spring 2025 Finishing Fellows. Awardees will be recognized daily in Tech Today through Jan. 17.

Rhiannon Turner is a Ph.D. candidate in the University’s Applied Physics program. Her research centers on exploring the galaxy through gamma-ray astronomy with the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory. She has focused on astrophysical objects like supernova remnants and pulsar wind nebulae, which “accelerate cosmic-rays to energies a trillion times more energetic than visible light, and which produce some of the highest energy gamma-rays we detect in our galaxy.”

Read more about Turner’s journey at Michigan Tech on the Graduate School Newsblog.

Michigan Tech hockey is hosting Lake Superior State this weekend in the Huskies' first home and CCHA series of 2025. The puck drops at 7:07 p.m. today, Jan. 10, and 6:07 p.m. tomorrow, Jan. 11, at the John MacInnes Student Ice Arena. It's the only meeting between the two teams this season.

Saturday is Kids Day! Marketplace Foods of Houghton has purchased 500 youth tickets for Saturday's Kids Day. The grocery store has been doing the ticket giveaway for over 20 years.

Fans can listen to Michigan Tech hockey live on the radio at Mix 93.5 WKMJ-FM or online at TheMix93.com or Pasty.net.

Watch MTU hockey on Midco Sports Plus 2 (subscription required).

Read the hockey preview at Michigan Tech Athletics.

The Michigan Tech Nordic ski teams opened the 2025 portion of their schedule at the 2025 U.S. Cross Country Ski National Championships, held in Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska, from Jan. 2-7.

"This was an incredible experience for our student-athletes, many of whom had never been to Alaska before, to race alongside the moose at Kincaid Park," said head coach Tom Monahan Smith.

"We've faced unforeseen adversity at the start of this season with some of our athletes dealing with injury or illness, and what this makes you realize that you can never take anything for granted," he said. "It's important to celebrate every success we achieve along the way, and there were plenty of successes for us to celebrate as a team throughout U.S. Cross Country Ski National Championships."

Read more ski team news at Michigan Tech Athletics.

Job Posting for Friday, Jan. 10, 2025

Staff and faculty job descriptions are available on the Human Resources website. For more information regarding staff positions, call 906-487-2280 or email humanresources@mtu.edu. For more information regarding faculty positions, contact the academic department in which the position is posted.

Administrative Aide (12 months/ 40 hours/ first shift) #24353, Humanities. Apply online.

Michigan Technological University is an Equal Opportunity Educational Institution/Equal Opportunity Employer that provides equal opportunity for all, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.

Accommodations are available. If you require any auxiliary aids, services, or other accommodations to apply for employment, or for an interview, at Michigan Technological University, please notify the Human Resources office at 906-487-2280 or humanresources@mtu.edu.

Rupali Datta (BioSci/GLRC) is the principal investigator (PI) on a project that has received a $1,900,000 research and development co-op joint agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy/Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

The project is titled "Chemically and Biologically Catalyzed Phytomining of Nickel from Serpentine Barren Soils."

Stephen Techtmann (BioSci/GLRC) is a co-PI on this potential three-year project.

WLUC TV6 featured Sierra Williams and Molly Capelli (both CEO), along with Huskies Liz Lamers (environmental engineering) and Hannah Monville (biochemistry and molecular biology), in a Jan. 8 segment of “TV6 Morning News.” The story highlighted the Mind Trekkers and Michigan Tech’s Summer Youth Programs, showcasing a live demonstration and info on future opportunities to see the Mind Trekkers in action.

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The Keweenaw Report mentioned Tom Oliver (CSEO/CEGE) and Emily Geiger ’11 ’15 (M.S. Ph.D. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) in a story about registration opening for InventCon at Superior MakersFest 2025. The event invites Copper Country students to submit inventions that solve challenges facing their communities, with the opportunity to advance to a state-level competition.

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Bryant Weathers (ADV) was quoted by the Institute for Charitable Giving’s Philanthropy Counts newsletter in a promo about the institute’s next Seize the Opportunity seminar. Weathers and five others from Michigan Tech’s Advancement team attended the seminar from Oct. 7-9 in Chicago.

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NHL.com quoted former Michigan Tech hockey defenseman Matt Roy in a story highlighting his 400th NHL game. Roy, now with the Washington Capitals, reflected on his time at Michigan Tech, crediting the program for playing a key role in his development and helping him prepare for his NHL career.

Sign Up for 'Integrating AI and Instruction @ MTU' Course

If you have an interest in getting up to speed with artificial intelligence, consider signing up for this five-week badge offered for faculty on AI instruction. The course will be co-instructed asynchronously online by Holly Hassel (HU) of the College of Sciences and Arts and Shane Oberloier (ECE) of the College of Engineering.

After successful completion of this badge, learners will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of AI-related vocabulary.
• Demonstrate proficiency with AI tools.
• Gain an understanding of how AI is used within various industries.
• Be able to identify assignments that can be modified to integrate AI, and carry out the modification.
• Enhance course preparation and delivery through the use of AI.
• Understand the ethical issues generated by the use of AI in courses/work.

Online instruction of this course begins on Feb. 2. Capacity is limited to 20 attendees.

Sign up on the registration form.

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Zero Waste Hockey Game Tomorrow

Michigan Tech will host our first-ever Zero Waste Hockey Game when the Huskies take on Lake Superior State tomorrow, Jan. 11. The initiative aims to demonstrate how large-scale sporting events can minimize their environmental impact while maintaining an exceptional fan experience.

Attendees will notice several environmentally friendly changes at the game, including compostable packaging at concessions, waste collection stations with clearly marked recycling and composting bins, and volunteer support to guide proper waste sorting. Following the game, a team of volunteers will ensure proper waste management, partnering with Recycle 906 and Partridge Creek Compost to divert materials from landfills.

Volunteers Welcome!
Interested in volunteering during the Zero Waste Hockey Game? Volunteers gain free entry into the game. Sign up to volunteer and support sustainability efforts on campus!

The Zero Waste Hockey Game is a partnership between MTU Athletics, Husky Eats and the Office of Sustainability and Resilience.

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

Graduating and Still Looking

Friday, January 10, 10 a.m.–12 p.m. | Administration and Student Services Building, 220 Career Services

Are you graduating in April? Are you still looking for your first opportunity out of college? Join us Friday mornings for coffee and discuss possibilities and strategies for...

Cookies & Coloring

Friday, January 10, 1–3 p.m. | CDI Basement

Take a break and unwind at Cookies and Coloring! Enjoy tasty treats while you relax with some coloring—it’s a perfect way to de-stress and recharge.

MRI Based Computational Modeling for Patient Specific Fluid Dynamics

Friday, January 10, 3–4 p.m. | Chemical Sciences and Engineering Building, 104

Biomedical Engineering Research Seminar Alejandro Roldán-Alzate University of Wisconsin - Madison Abstract Comprehensive characterization and quantification of blood flow...

Shabbat Hang Out

Friday, January 10, 5:00–6:45 p.m. | Fisher 328

Join Michigan Tech's Hillel this Friday, January 10th in Fisher room 328 to celebrate shabbat, and to get together as a Jewish community. We will have challah and grape juice...

Volleyball Middle School Development League

Friday, January 10, 6:00–7:30 p.m. | Student Development Complex (SDC), Multipurpose Room

A four-week developmental program for middle school girls in grades 6, 7, & 8 to learn and improve their skills in preparation for the upcoming interscholastic season. This...

Men's Ice Hockey vs Lake Superior State

Friday, January 10, 7:07–10:07 p.m. | John MacInnes Student Ice Arena

Men's Ice Hockey vs Lake Superior State Houghton, Mich.

"The Wild Robot" - Film Board Movie

Friday, January 10, 8:30–10:30 p.m. | Fisher 135

Come catch "The Wild Robot" a animated movie about a Robot Learning to become more than meets the eye. "The Wild Robot" is also in contention to be the best animated movie of...

"The Wild Robot" - Film Board Movie

Friday, January 10, 11:30 p.m.–12:00 a.m. | Fisher 135

Come catch "The Wild Robot" a animated movie about a Robot Learning to become more than meets the eye. "The Wild Robot" is also in contention to be the best animated movie of...

Vastness: Art, Sound, & Meditation

January 10, all day | J. Robert Van Pelt and John and Ruanne Opie Library, East Reading Room

MICHIGAN TECH ART SERIES EVENT Vastness is an art exhibition and meditation lounge area installed at east end of the Van Pelt Opie reading room. Conceived by Anne Beffel, it...