|
Olin's first commencement will be Sunday, May 21, 2006 with the ceremony beginning at 2 p.m.
On June 17 Duncan Murdoch hosted two Senegalese visitors as part of WorldBoston. WorldBoston facilitates mutually beneficial exchanges and understandings between citizens of Greater Boston and the global community involved in government, commerce, education, science and the arts. The two visitors are traveling in the U.S. under the auspices of the International Visitor Program of the U.S. Department of State. Their national program has been organized by the U.S. Department of State Office of Voluntary Visitors in Washington D.C. The visitors were treated to a tour of Olin and an introduction to its curriculum and founding precepts.
The Admission office will be hosting its second open house for women -- The Olin Experience: An Introduction for Women -- on Sunday, July 25 from 11:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. The event will be an opportunity to welcome prospective women students to Olin's campus to learn more about engineering. The event will include an introduction to the curriculum, current students, administrators and faculty. Last year's event was very well-received and the Office of Admission is hoping this year's event will be equally successful.
On August 1, a new group will move onto the Olin campus. The College has leased Curie House to The Boston Consortium for Higher Education (TBC). The TBC website (http://www.boston-consortium.org) provides the following information about the organization:
The Boston Consortium was established in the fall of 1995 by the Chief Financial Officers of 11 Boston-area colleges and universities. The Consortium is currently comprised of the following institutions: Babson College, Bentley College, Berklee College of Music, Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, Olin College, Tufts University, Wellesley College and Wheaton College.
The institutions' diversity is reflected in their operating budgets, which range from approximately $37 million to $1.5 billion, and annual research expenditures, which range from $0 to about $351 million. This group's diversity also stems from the differences in academic focus (business, liberal arts, music, graduate/professional), student body (single sex, coed), location (rural, suburban, urban), and the age of the institution (ranging from 1 to 360 years old).
Since becoming a member, Olin has been very active in the Consortium. This activity has led to publicity for Olin, opportunities for Olin employees to participate in training and development programs and events, participation in functional groups activities, and in a number of instances the opportunity to realize significant cost savings by working with other institutions in the group.
The TBC staff will begin moving from their current location at the Babson hockey rink during the month of July and will begin operations at Curie on August 1.
Robert Sekuler and Christopher Moore have agreed to be panelists for the September 2 Convocation to discuss Phantoms in the Brain. Sekuler is the Louis and Frances Salvage Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Brandeis University. Moore is Assistant Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT; he is an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and does research on the somatosensory system. Alison Lee '07 will serve as moderator for this panel. The Convocation will begin at 7 p.m. in the Olin Center Auditorium.
A small group of faculty, staff and students has begun work on developing competencies and competency assessments at Olin, as outlined in the new curriculum. Mark Somerville is chairing the work of this group, which is working towards a deadline of August 1 for the completion of this task. Minutes and information on the group's work can be found at http://competencies.ece.olin.edu/.Take a look at this site or contact Mark if you would like more information. Opportunities for formal input from faculty, staff and students will be coming in the near future.
- Click Community Calendar for the calendar on upcoming community-wide events:
- Click CORe Public Calendar for the calendar on upcoming student activities.
- Both can also be found in Outlook under Public Folders > Calendars.
The College is currently looking to fill the following positions:
• Visiting Position in Bioengineering
• Writing Consultant
• Associate Director (IT)
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems Manager (IT)
• Faculty Assistant
• Financial Services Coordinator
Last year, the Olin float won first prize in the Needham July 4th parade with a colorful Phoenix entry. This year the committee hopes to repeat its success and needs many volunteers to help with the float during the week between June 27 and July 4. Anyone interested can contact Cara Szeghy.
Do you have a couple extra hours each week? Do you want to earn a little extra cash? If so, contact Joe Hunter to discuss the open position in detail. The hours are very flexible.
Do you have a good idea for a Co-Curricular Offering? How about sharing one of your hobbies with a group of students? If you would like to lead a Co-Curricular next semester (Fall 2004), please send Rod Crafts a brief description and a detailed budget request by Monday, June 21. Contact Rod with questions about or suggestions for this important element of the Olin College Learning Continuum.
In the past few weeks, OIR has sponsored two workshops on meeting management. The workshops were geared towards faculty, staff and students, as meeting leaders or participants. Topics covered include formal meeting practices (agendas, minutes, charge etc.) and group dynamics (decision-making, equalizing participation etc). The workshop format encouraged active discussion and participation. Thanks to the 20 Olin folks who participated already!
Additional workshops will be scheduled in the late summer and fall—please let Ann Schaffner know if you are interested. The recent workshops have been scheduled in a 2½ hour block, but other schedules are possible—we are considering a series of lunchtime “brownbags” as an alternative. Workshops can also be scheduled for specific groups or departments. Please contact Ann with your ideas and suggestions.
As you may (or may not) know, the official college font is Bembo. If you would like to purchase a license to own the font you can contact any font vendor, including Phil's Fonts (philsfonts.com) at 1-800-424-2977. Mention Olin College if you contact Phil's Fonts. If you have questions that can be answered internally see Krissy Raposa.
Please remember to use Olin's new blue folders, which include the actual campus aerial (instead of the model photo) and the updated grant amount ($400 instead of $300 million). The new folders should be used for external purposes and the old ones should be recycled and used internally.
Upcoming office moves to be completed week of June 21, include: Pat Berardi to OC 320, Susie Johanson to OC 114, Teresa Kelleher to OC 114, and Bill Nunez to OC 311. Phone extensions for all will remain the same.
Olin's faculty/staff softball team was defeated 16-15 in a competitive game against Babson's IT department. Olin played stellar defense with Joe McDonald diving for a catch in center field and Ellen Cooney making several great plays at second base. Andy Moutinho and Scott Slaboden supported the defense with great pitching. Olin's offense was led by an in-the-park homerun by Brad Lovas. The team plays its next game on July 7.
• David S. Barrett, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Capstone Project Program
Dr. Barrett received his Ph.D. from MIT and has served as Vice President of Engineering for iRobot Corporation for the last six years. He was previously the Director of the Walt Disney Imagineering Corporation in Cambridge.
• Rebecca Christianson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Applied Physics
Dr. Christianson is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University. She received her Ph.D. from MIT and her undergraduate degree from Stanford University. Dr. Christianson recently received a teaching award from the Derek Book Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University. She will be joining Olin in January.
• Caitrin Lynch, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences
Dr. Lynch received her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago and was previously an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Drew University. Additional professional experience includes a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University and a visiting position at the University of Illinois.
• Bradley A. Minch, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Dr. Minch received his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology. He comes to Olin from Cornell University where he received numerous teaching awards; in 2003 he was identified as the Professor of the Year Award by Cornell's IEEE student organization.
• Jessica Townsend, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Townsend received her doctoral degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT. She currently holds a research position at MIT and has held instructional positions within the mechanical engineering department of MIT. She specializes in heat transfer, thermodynamics and fluid dynamics.
• Mark L. Chang, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Mark Chang is expected to receive his doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington in spring 2004. He received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University and his M.S. from Northwestern University. He has received numerous awards for his scholarly activities including an Intel Foundation Graduate Fellowship in 2002-2003. While at the University of Washington he was an instructor for a senior-level design course.
Hillary Berbeco, Assistant Professor of Chemistry will be on personal leave for one year. Jill Crisman, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering will be on personal leave for two years.
Teresa Kelleher is Olin's new Admission Service Coordinator. She'll be responsible for, among other things, application processing and data management. She received her B.A. from University of New Hampshire and her M.B.A. from Bentley College. She has been involved primarily in project management, telecommunications and software with GTE, Foster Miller and Comverse (not the sneaker company). The day before her first day at Olin she broke her elbow roller while blading with her niece -- so you'll recognize her easily with her sling. She will be sharing a new office with Susan Johanson in OC 114, the former Admission conference room.
Jessica Osborne joined the Sloan Center on May 19 as the Marketing and Publications Coordinator. Jessica comes to Olin as a recent graduate from Bentley College where she majored in Marketing, with a minor in Information Design and Corporate Communications. Her education and experience in marketing as well as print and online media production is a much needed asset to Sloan Center's current operations. Jessica's office is in OC 262 and she can be reached at x2535.
On May 17 the Information Technology Department announced the addition of Steve Sherrick to their team. Steve is the Audio/Visual Technician. He joins Olin after eight years of experience working as a Chief Sound Engineer at the Chedd-Angier Production Company of Watertown. In this role, Steve was responsible for all audio recording and mixing in the post production environment. He also worked as a Post Production Supervisor and Assistant Editor. He comes with lots of experience in audio and video editing and has working experience with all the current technologies utilized at Olin. Steve's office is located in Olin Center, Suite LL10. He can be reached at x2469.
On June 1, Jennifer MacLean joined Olin as the Staff Assistant in Human Resources. She works within the Finance and Administration organization. Jen came to Olin from CompUSA where she was the Human Resource/Training Coordinator. She was the key contact for employees with benefits, recruiting and payroll inquiries in addition to coordinating CompUSA's computer training sessions. Jen's experience in a service oriented role is a great fit for the position of Staff Assistant within Human Resources. Jen is located in Olin Center, Suite 300. She can be reached at x2409.
Zhaopeng (pronounced chou- p  n) Ji will join Olin on Monday, June 21 as the Senior Accountant in the Financial Services Department. Zhaopeng previously worked for Levine, Katz, Nannis & Solomon, PC, a CPA firm in Needham, for four years as a Senior Accountant. She is a CPA and also has an MBA from UMass Boston. Hiring Zhaopeng is part of the transition away from Babson Financial Services. She replaces Babson personnel who previously did senior accounting work, and she will also be responsible for accounting for our rapidly growing endowment. Zhaopeng's office will be located at OC 312. Her phone extension is 2424.
Effective June 14, Eric Benson became the summer Campus Services Intern reporting to Scott Slaboden. On June 16, Jasen Lew joined Olin as an MBA summer intern for the Sloan Consortium reporting to Keith Bourne.
Effective June 7, Courtney became the Campus Services Purchasing Assistant. Her office is located in CC 326 and her extension is 2312. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings she continues to serve as Financial Services Coordinator (half-time) until that position is filled. Her financial services office is OC 316 and her extension is 2423.
On May 18, Matthew Cottle was inducted as a member of the Rotary Club in Needham. This is another step in Olin's commitment to serve our surrounding community in whatever ways possible.
|
