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- Nobel Laureate Delivers 2001-2002 Goff Smith Lecture
- Regents Elect Mary Sue Coleman President of the University of Michigan
- Dean Director Testifies Before U.S. House of Representatives
- Conference on Information Technologies in Today’s Global Auto Industry
- New Engineering Internship Fair
- MEPO ScholarPower Event Recognizes CoE Students
- Virginia Wait Receives 2002 Distinguished Research Administrator Award
- WISE and ME Earn Computerworld Honors
- CoE Forms K-12 Outreach Committee
Nobel Laureate Delivers 2001-2002 Goff Smith Lecture
On March 20, Nobel Prize recipient Herbert Kroemer received the 2001-2002 Goff Smith Prize from the University of Michigan College of Engineering and delivered a lecture in the Johnson Rooms of the Robert H. Lurie Engineering Center on North Campus. Kroemer, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2000 for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in fast opto- and microelectronics components.
Regents Elect Mary Sue Coleman President of the University of Michigan
In a unanimous 8-0 vote, the Regents of the University of Michigan elected Mary Sue Coleman as the 13th president of the University. Coleman had served as president of the University of Iowa since 1995, as well as a professor of biochemistry in Iowa’s College of Medicine and professor of biological sciences in the College of Liberal Arts.
In nominating Coleman, Regent Laurence Deitch called her “a national leader in higher education.” Coleman, he said, “was quite simply the best candidate in an extraordinary field and we are fortunate to have her.”
“My entire career has been spent at some of the nation’s finest public universities,” Coleman said. “The presidency of the University of Michigan is the pinnacle of public higher education. I am looking forward to this opportunity to work with the faculty, staff and students of this great university.”
Dean Director Testifies Before U.S. House of Representatives
On March 13, Stephen W. Director, the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives House Research Subcommittee. His topic: How Congress can best determine the appropriate funding level for the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Director emphasized the key role that NSF plays in the development of significant innovations, such as the Internet, and in the advancement of physical sciences, technology and medicine. He asked that NSF continue to support new areas of study and to increase funding for major research equipment and graduate stipends.
Conference on Information Technologies in Today’s Global Auto Industry
On April 26, the College of Engineering’s Center for Professional Development hosted “AUTOe: Information Technology Enabling the Future,” a conference that explored the potential impact and application of information technologies on the global automotive industry. The conference co-chair was David Cole, president of the Center for Automotive Research at Altarum, a company that addresses the relationship of information flow and innovation. Cole said that high sales volume but low profitability indicated the business model of the automotive industry is “essentially broken.” Cole went on to say that restructuring is underway “to achieve a new model that features such factors as real-time, math-based, collaborative engineering across the supply chain, the use of virtual prototypes, creative alliances spanning traditional boundaries, high-performance rapid build-to-order processes, lean agile systems and much more.”
New Engineering Internship Fair
The College’s Engineering Career Resource Center and the U-M Career Planning & Placement office joined forces to sponsor an Engineering Internship Fair at the Pierpont Commons in the Media Union in early February. The event provided an opportunity for all engineering students to learn about industrial internships.
MEPO ScholarPower Event Recognizes CoE Students
On February 6, the Minority Engineering Program Office (MEPO) introduced the ScholarPOWER Banquet, an event that honors top minority engineering students in the College of Engineering. MEPO is a major component of CoE’s efforts to address the academic, personal and professional training and development of underrepresented minority students and, in the process, to enhance diversity and excellence by helping to increase graduation rates among these students.
Lyonel Milton, MEPO student advisor, said that the banquet is “the culminating event created to celebrate excellence in academic performance of underrepresented minority engineering students and those who have contributed to their achievements. For students, it’s an opportunity to be personally recognized in a venue that showcases their outstanding performance in full view of their peers, parents, faculty, staff and engineering employers.”
Virginia Wait Receives 2002 Distinguished Research Administrator Award
Virginia Wait (AB ’72, MBA ’87, AM ’98), department administrator for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, received the University of Michigan’s 2002 Distinguished Research Administrator Award. The award recognizes exemplary service in achieving the goals of professional research administration. Wait recently celebrated 30 years of service to the University. She’s working on her PhD in higher education administration.
WISE and ME Earn Computerworld Honors
The Computerworld Honors Program recognized the U-M Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program and the Mechanical Engineering (ME) department for their role in the “global information technology revolution and the impact of their achievements on society.”
The WISE Program started in 1980, when women constituted 17 percent of undergraduates in the College of Engineering. A year ago, women made up 32 percent of first-year College undergraduates. In contrast, the national average is currently 19 percent. These and other statistics substantiate the remarkable effect that WISE has had on the College and the University.
ME received its honors for the Global Product Development course, created in 2000 by Deba Dutta, professor and associate chair, Mechanical Engineering. The course brought together engineering students from England, Korea and U-M for instruction in the development and marketing of products for global consumption. The class was also taught at Oxford and in Seoul. Guest lecturers from the Law School, Business School, Psychology, International Institute and Anthropology lectured on topics such as culturally appropriate innovation, global branding and global products liability.
