First Engineering Innovation Scholarship awarded
Senior mechatronics major Garrett Bailey has been selected as the first recipient of the SPSU Engineering Innovation Scholarship.

Bailey received the $1,000 scholarship in December 2011 from retired Prof. Glenn Allen, former director of the Mechatronics Engineering Program, and Daryle Higginbotham, chair of the SPSU Foundation Board of Trustees. Prof. Allen created the scholarship, and Higginbotham was instrumental in funding it. The scholarship will support Bailey’s studies during the Spring 2012 semester.

Bailey, who has maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout his time at SPSU, is highly praised by his professors as a hard-working, thoroughly prepared and engaged student. He is an active member of the Undergraduate Research Club and was a group leader on the 2009-10 SPSU Submersible Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Team. In 2010, the SPSU Computer Science and Software Engineering Department asked Bailey to present his solution to a complex robot programming design challenge at a national software development conference.

He also served as a personal assistant to Dr. Chan Ham during his transition to director of the Mechatronics Engineering Program, and in this role, Bailey participated in the final negotiations, logistics, acquisition and installation of SPSU’s largest gift to date – a $4.5 million donation of robotic equipment by a Texas firm.

For more information on helping this endowed scholarship reach its $25,000 goal, please contact Kit Trensch, director of development, at ktrensch@spsu.edu.

SPSU to host Future City Competition on Jan. 21
SPSU will once again host the Georgia Regional Future City Competition for approximately 150 teams of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students on Saturday, Jan. 21. The event will be held in the Engineering Technology Center and Student Center Theater from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Faculty and staff volunteers are needed to make this event a success.

Teams from a number of Georgia middle schools will present and defend their vision of a city of the future (designed in Sim City and brought to life as a scale model). Their presentations will be evaluated by a panel of engineers to determine which team will advance to the national competition in Washington, D.C.

Prior to the competition, participants were required to submit a well-researched essay on this year’s theme, “Fuel your future: Imagine new ways to meet our energy needs and maintain a healthy planet.” The students had to come up with a way to run their cities with alternative energy sources that do not deplete natural resources and have minimal impact on the environment.

To volunteer as a Future City judge or competition assistant, please contact Dawn Ramsey, the event’s regional coordinator, at dramsey@spsu.edu or ext. 4287.

Tuition assistance now available for unemployed students in HIT fast-track program
SPSU’s Continuing Education Center recently received word that the U.S. Department of Labor under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) will cover the tuition costs of unemployed students who enroll in the Accelerated Training Program in Health Information Technology (HIT).

SPSU partnered with the Consort Institute in offering this 10-week professional training program created in response to the substantial need for healthcare-oriented information technology professionals. Due to the high demand for these graduates, the program also provides job placement services.

Dr. Han Reichgelt, dean of the School of Computing & Software Engineering (CSE), extended congratulations to Dr. Mahmoud Ghavi, co-director of the Center for Health Information Technology; Dr. Russ Hunt, dean of the Extended University; and Dr. Abi Salimi, an associate professor in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department, among others, for their hard work on obtaining approval for the WIA funding.

SPSU Foundation trustee’s firm honored for volunteerism
The Cobb County Chamber of Commerce and Georgia Trend magazine recently honored Balfour Beatty Construction with the 2011 Sam Olens Business Community Service Award for the firm’s active role in the Cobb community and volunteer efforts with SafePath Children’s Advocacy Center Inc.

SPSU Foundation Trustee and alumnus Carl Frinzi – husband of Pam Frinzi, an SPSU professor of electrical and computer engineering technology – is senior vice president of the firm.

In addition to its volunteer work, Balfour Beatty Construction has also given nearly $210,000 to 32 nonprofit organizations during the past year.

Recent faculty publications
• Dr. Sung-Hee (Sonny) Kim and Prof. Sam Beadles in the Civil and Construction Engineering Program recently published a technical paper based on research conducted in collaboration with the Korean Highway Corporation. The paper, “Flexible Pavement Analysis Considering Temperature Profile and Anisotropy Behavior in Hot Mix Asphalt Layer,” was published in the Open Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 2.

• Two faculty members from the School of Computing & Software Engineering coauthored papers published in the proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery’s recent Research in Applied Computation Symposium in Miami. Dr. Edward Jung and Dr. Chih Cheng Hung wrote with two external colleagues, “A Unified Design Method Utilizing Decomposability and Composability for Secure Systems.”

• Dr. Ming Yang, an associate professor in the Department of Information Technology, coauthored a paper, “Optimization of Power Allocation in Multimedia Wireless Sensor Networks,” published in the proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Networks and Computing, held in Bangkok, Thailand in December 2011.

Staff updates
• Facilities has a new assistant director and three new managers. Anthony Maddox is the new assistant director. Also new to the department are: Sylvia White, custodial manager; Keith Curtis, energy manager; and Beth White, construction manager.

• Erica Pollard joined the SPSU staff in November 2011 as a human resources assistant in the Office of Human Resources. She previously worked at WellStar Health Systems and was employed by Kennesaw State University for more than eight years.

SPSU alum elected to Smyrna City Council
Charles “Corkey” Welch, who received his associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in architectural engineering technology from SPSU, took office as a Smyrna city councilman on Jan. 2.

Welch, 52, is senior vice president of Stevenson & Palmer Engineering Inc., a Cobb County civil engineering consulting firm. Although he has no prior political experience, he was able to unseat the incumbent Ward 4 councilman in a runoff election in November 2011.

The art of gifting
Each year, Marietta attorney and former Cobb Chamber of Commerce President Fred Bentley, Sr. makes a generous gift of paintings and books from his collection to the SPSU Foundation for the benefit of the Library. Dr. Joyce Mills is shown accepting this year’s donations during a visit last month to his law firm, Bentley, Bentley & Bentley.

For more information on making a gift-in-kind for the benefit of the University and receiving a charitable tax deduction, please contact the Office of Advancement at ext. 7351.

Have news to share?
If your department has an upcoming event or other news to share with the campus community, please send an e-mail with all the pertinent information to Diane Payne (dpayne@spsu.edu). To be considered for use in a specific issue of the SPSU Hornet’s Nest, a news item must be submitted no less than four weeks before the date of the issue.

Volume 5, Issue 1
Jan. 11, 2012