SPSU prepares to host Polytechnic Summit again
More than 200 people have registered for the 4th Annual Polytechnic Summit, which SPSU will once again host on June 6-8.

The program kicks off with a luncheon on Wed., June 6, that features keynote speaker George L. Mehaffy, vice president for Academic Leadership and Change at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). Mehaffy will address “The Changing Context for Higher Education.” Workshops, panel discussions and a poster session on a variety of topics related to polytechnic education follow the luncheon.

At a dinner that night, Nick Gillian, a postdoctoral fellow and Fulbright scholar in the Responsive Environments Group in the Media Lab at MIT, will speak. Gillian will talk about his research on the design and development of algorithms and tools used to create real-time gesture recognition for musician-computer interaction.

After a full day of paper sessions and workshops, the summit moves off-campus for the night of Thurs., June 7, when a special event is planned at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, and then wraps up with a luncheon on Fri., June 8. All three days will feature workshops and panel discussions revolving around the challenges and opportunities polytechnic institutions face. There will also be poster and paper sessions on a wide variety of research topics, as well as teaching and administrative issues.

Much of the Summit program will take place in the Engineering Technology Center and the Student Center.

Dr. Mark Nunes, David Stone graduate from USG leadership program
Dr. Mark Nunes, chair of the English, Technical Communication and Media Arts department, and David Stone, director of the Office of Faculty Support and Development, recently graduated from the University System of Georgia’s (USG) Executive Leadership Institute (ELI).

Nunes and Stone were two of 69 USG scholars selected to represent SPSU in the ELI during 2011-12. The 100-hour professional development program promotes mentoring relationships and exposes participants to a variety of leadership models in order to prepare them for high-level advancement within the USG. Participants were required to shadow a leader at another institution and complete a project.

Nunes shadowed the president of Clayton State University, Dr. Thomas “Tim” Hynes. His project focused on the strategic use of social media for higher education recruitment, retention and outreach.

Stone shadowed Dr. W. Ken Harmon, the provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Kennesaw State University. His project included reviewing the online course development process at KSU and improving the student technology fee process at SPSU.

Previous ELI graduates from SPSU are:
2010-11 – Robert Forbes, director of Material Management, and Dr. Julie Newell, chair of the Social and International Studies department; and

2009-10 – Dr. Han Reichgelt, dean of the School of Computing and Software Engineering, and Dr. Khalid Siddiqi, chair of the Construction Management department.

Three SPSU faculty members earn emeritus status
The Board of Regents recently approved the awarding of emeritus titles to three members of the SPSU faculty. They are as follows:

• Jack Pace (mathematics since 1983), associate professor emeritus
• Steven Vincent (library since 1995), librarian emeritus, and
• Dr. Wilson (Bill) Barnes (School of Architecture and Construction Management since 1995), professor emeritus.

CGDD student nets competitive summer research job
Josh Skelton, a computer game design and development (CGDD) major, has been accepted for a summer research position at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the program is very competitive – less than 7 percent of applicants are accepted, according to Dr. Han Reichgelt, dean of the School of Computing and Software Engineering (CSE).

Skelton will have the opportunity to work with a faculty member at the host institution on a summer research project and will join a biomedical informatics research team. Skelton will work on the Xbox Kinect SDK and research algorithms that can be used for physical therapy/rehabilitation patients.

CSE honored Skelton with its CGDD Undergraduate Award at the 2012 Student Awards Banquet in late April.

Architecture students published in magazine
Trim Tab, a quarterly publication of the nonprofit organization International Living Future Institute, published an article this spring written by students in SPSU Prof. Ed Akins’ third-year architecture class.

Trim Tab invited the students to submit an article describing their participation last fall in the 2011 Living Aleutian Home Design Competition. The piece is entitled “Living, Learning, Building and Sharing (One Petal at a Time).”

Assistant professor and environmental technologies coordinator Akins presented the Aleutian Home Design Competition’s Living Building Challenge to his class as an option for the lab portion of the course, and students were excited and enthusiastic to get involved.

The students’ main design priority was to provide energy-efficient protection from the environment, while incorporating traditional home design elements. Their building was partially underground to take advantage of the natural insulating properties of soil and incorporated a greenhouse to create sunspace and add to the insulation of the interior.

A poster on the teams competition entry were displayed with 14 other entries at the 2012 Living Future Institute, a forum for leading minds in the green building movement, in Portland, Ore., earlier this month.

Career Services seeking potential employers
Christi Pichon, employer and career relations coordinator in Career Services, needs your help.

“One of my primary focuses is to connect potential employers to SPSU and our students,” she noted. “I am constantly on the look out for new companies or opportunities for our students and very much appreciate when a faculty or staff member or one of our graduates knows of a company that is hiring and shares that information with me.”

“I constantly preach the importance of networking to our students and how invaluable it is in their job searches, but it is the driving force behind my position, too,” she said. “It is my job to connect with companies, inform them about all the great programs and students we have at Southern Poly and then work with them to start the recruiting process.”

If you know of a company looking to fill positions, please pass any contact information you have along to Pichon at ext. 7391 or cpichon2@spsu.edu.

Police Department planning follow-up on rape prevention program
Buoyed by the success of its first women-only rape prevention seminar for faculty, staff and students, the SPSU Police Department plans to repeat the program in the near future and to offer an advanced program for the initial participants.

The six women who completed all four sessions of the safety program learned defense tactics and techniques and raised their awareness regarding the need for self-defense.

Sgt. Jasmine Odom taught the course with the help of several other members of the department. On the last day of the program, police officers from Kennesaw State University and Georgia Gwinnett College helped SPSU officers stage simulated attacks on the participants, giving them a chance to test the skills they had learned.

“I was impressed by the amount of growth I saw in these women in such a short period of time. It was fun to see everyone progress from day one.” Sgt. Odom said.

The seminar, limited to 10 people, cost participants $10 for four three-hour sessions.

For more information about campus safety and upcoming programs, check out the SPSU Police website and Facebook page.

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 20
May 30, 2012