News

Institute fills faculty vacancies

Troy city council reviews RPI plans

Sage announces donation

Poly's Past

Ed/Op

Staff Editorial
Stop deplorable tradition of tardy state budgets

Editorial Notebook
Media hype only fills demand

Editorial Notebook
Territorial parking unwelcome

Greek Life
“Rho Chi” counselors available for recruitment advice

Top Hat
GM recommends student government

Derby
Union “firsts” bring excitement

Independent Council
IC looking for freshmen reps

Undergraduate Council
UC looks to change face of RPI experience

Features

Mount Snow hosts annual brewers festival

Lutzky-At-Large
Provost Peterson profiled

Sports

Runners start off strong

Soccer teams split weekend

Women’s tennis nearly knocks off Nazareth

Red Hawks take down Oneonta in shutout

Rensselaer in Brief
Graduate Dean named
Professor Tom Apple was named Dean of the Graduate Education effective September 1 2002.

Professor Apple recently served as chair of the Chemistry Department. He was chosen as a result of an internal search opened in early May.

Apple will have institute-wide oversight of doctoral and master’s programs. Additional responsibilities include assuring the overall quality of the graduate program, assisting academic departments in achieving their academics missions, and coordination of graduate programs.

Scholars honored
Two graduate students, Dean Nieusma and Elizabeth Press, became the first RPI students to receive the prestigious Fullbright grants, presented for research and studying aboard. The awards were announced recently by the J. William Fullbright Foreign Scholarship Board and the U.S. Department of State.

"A Fullbright Scholarship is the pinnacle of achievement for any student, " said Institute President Shirley Ann Jackson. "Two of our students representing Rensselaer as Fullbright Scholars is outstanding. Dean and Elizabeth embody the excellence and brilliance of our graduate researchers at Rensselaer. We congratulate them on this exciting opportunity."

Nieusma, a doctoral candidate in Science and Technology Studies, plans to conduct a nine-month ethnographic study of technology design practices in Sri Lanka, beginning in October.

Press, a graduate student in electronic arts, is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree and plans to spend a year in Santo Domingo—a city in the Dominican Republic—helping at-risk students in "Video Connections," an after-school project she devised.

Candidate chosen
Paul E. Fredette was recently named the new assistant director of the Office of Technology and Commercialization.

Fredette has more than thirty years of experience in research and development, management, marketing, and business development.

He has a background in chemical and environmental engineering and received his master’s and doctorate degrees from Rensselaer.

Projected supported
RPI has been awarded a three-year, $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Digital Government Program for Connected Kids, a cooperative project between the City of Troy and Rensselaer. The project seeks to produce an online, self-service database of educational, recreational, employment, and training opportunities for children, their familes, and teachers.

"Troy and Rensselaer County offer a multitude of activities and services for young people but currently do not provide centralized information," said Teri Harrison, professor of communication, who oversees the project along with Sibel Adali, assistant professor of computer science, and Jim Zappen, associate professor of communication.

The Connected Kids project was created by researchers at RPI with help from city and county governments, the Department of Housing and Area Housing, local school systems, and more than 20 youth-service agencies.

It is part of a larger initiative—the Troy Community Networking Project—which was established to develop an area electronic community.

The Troy Networking Project has previously received assistance from the Rubin Community Fellows Program, a $100,000 Urban Challenge Grant from 3Com for the City of Troy, and $250,000 in cost-sharing from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Nominations sought
The School of Science is requesting campus nominations and applications for the position of associate dean of information technology.

Candidates must demonstrate an achievement of excellence in information technology and be able to construct and to articulate a broad vision of the future of IT at RPI.

The associate dean of information technology is responsible for leading and directing the undergraduate and graduate degree programs in information technology

and coordinating activites with the dean of science, who has responsibility for the administration of information technology programs.

He convenes the Information Technology advisory council and other panels to review the information technology program and chairs the Information Technology Oversight Committee, which consists of associate deans from the five academic schools and representatives from the Provost’s Office and the Department of the Chief Information Officer.

Additionally, the dean motivates and coordinates interdisciplinary information technology research initiatives in collaboration with the Office of the Vice President for Research and represents information technology as an academic discipline at RPI and to external groups. A letter of intent and a resume should be sent to Dean Joseph E. Flaherty in room 1C05 of the Science Center no later than September 14, 2001.