McIntyre named finalist
President Shirley Ann Jackson’s chief of staff, Cynthia McIntyre, has been selected as a finalist for the presidency of Tennessee State University. She is one of six candidates being interviewed on the Tennessee campus this week.
Applications for the Tennessee position began being accepted in July of 2004. Once the application pool was closed in November, there were about fifty candidates, from which 11 semifinalists were selected. Last month, that field was narrowed down to the current six.
The new president of Tennessee State University is expected to begin serving on June 1, 2005. McIntyre is the first person to hold the chief of staff position at RPI, and also currently serves as associate vice president for policy and planning.
RPI enters AI research
Selmer Bringsjord and Konstantine Arkoudas of the Cognitive Science department received a $400,000 one-year grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—the Defense Department’s research branch—with two optional years to follow.
They are pursuing a concept dubbed “poised for learning.” This concept implies problems of defining how artificially intelligent devices would work if they are to imitate human cognitive function.
This approach combines computer science, psychology, philosophy, and artificial intelligence in the hopes of both being able to understand human learning as well as imitate it in some way.
The theoretical design of the proposed intelligent learning machine is based on Arkoudas’ Multi-Agent Reasoning and Mental Metalogic, which was developed from Athena, a system he developed while at MIT.
To complement the basic design, Professor Bringsjord’s group has developed other functioning AI systems, including PERI, the first known robot capable of passing a standard IQ test.
Canadian prescriptions
In response to overwhelmingly high U.S. healthcare costs for its employees, Rensselaer County officials are proposing to buy drugs for all of its two-thousand employees from Canada, hoping to save over $300,000 each year.
If the legislature reaches an agreement, the County Executive signs it, and the county’s employee unions agree, the plan will go into effect, saving workers on the $10 to $25 co-pay they presently pay in the U.S.
Union members expressed delight at action on a plan they have been pushing for two years now. Recent rising drug prices have forced the issue to the forefront. This program closely follows that of Schenectady County, which last year signed up for domestic mail-ordered Canadian drugs for its 400 employees and saved $1 million.
Rensselaer County is seeking a dual approach. County Executive Kathy Jimino is seeking to reduce the price of the domestic plan and give employees a choice between the Canadian and the domestic plan. The supporters of the plan in Rensselaer County hope to eventually extend the plan to social service clients, jail inmates, and nursing home patients, all of whom could benefit greatly from inexpensive Canadian drugs.
HVCC calls students
In an attempt to retain more repeat students, Hudson Valley Community College has begun a program to call students in ten different circumstances. These calls serve to either alert the students as to what they need to do or alerts the college of a student’s decision to drop out or re-schedule.
Some sources estimate that half of the people who enroll at community colleges don’t return for a second year, making school retention rates abysmally low. The SUNY call center was started to more closely connect the college with its students. As a result, preliminary results suggest that fewer students are missing registration deadlines, and more are registering and scheduling classes earlier.
The call center aids students of all demographics—high-school graduates or adults in search of further education. Initially, it was believed that these phone calls would be snubbed by students, but students seem to be receiving them well.
New trustees
In December, the RPI Board of Trustees held their annual meeting, during which they honored faculty achievement and the accomplishments of The Rensselaer Plan to date. Additionally, they toured several new campus features, including the renovated Academy Hall, the Biotech Center, and the EMPAC construction site. During this meeting, NCAA President Myles Brand ’64 and capital district entrepreneur John Nigro officially joined their ranks.
Brand also served as president of Indiana University and was a chair of the American Association of Universities. Nigro is president of the Nigro Companies, a commercial real estate development firm based in the capital district, and serves on the Board of the Center for Economic growth.
Both men expressed their pleasure at being appointed trustees and supported the recent unanimous board resolution that recognized and affirmed the progress and success of The Plan.
