An Engaging Group

As the Dean of this College, I must tell you that I couldn’t be more pleased with the engagement of our faculty in just about every manner possible. We have experienced a spike in the number of papers being presented and published at conferences nationally and internationally.

Additionally, you continue to focus your attentions on the local and regional home front in a variety of manners, such as:

• Speeches to professional groups and societies;
• Nominations to competitions, advisory boards and industrial committees;
• New teaching and training grants;
• Achieving Certifications;

I know that we are doing great things here in the College, but it is a true testament to your efforts when people come up from other departments on campus and in the community and tell me how proud I must be of the work being done in TECS. To each of them, I smile and say this is just the tip of the iceberg for our College.

The fact that we spent the first ten minutes of the most recent College meeting recognizing the faculty and staff accomplishments was impressive. The fact that they all occurred in the last month is even more spectacular.

As we roll through the midpoint of the spring semester, I encourage your continued involvement and offer whatever assistance we can provide to grow those engagements here on campus and in the community.

Way to Go!!

Making Headlines

Daily Reflector – January 28, 2008
Professor pens book chapter

An engineering professor has contributed to a new book about organizational leadership. Gene Dixon, whose research focuses on corporate leadership processes and organizational management, wrote a chapter for “The Art of Followership…How Great Followers Can Create Great Leaders and Organizations” (Josey-Bass, 2008).

The book, the latest in the award-winning Warren Bennis Signature Series that tailors to corporate leaders, will be released Thursday.

Dixon’s chapter examines the interdependent relationship between leaders and followers. He explains that followers must assert their goals, desires and expectations, while leaders must create a positive environment to allow for growth.

Dixon said he was honored that his work was included in the book. “It is extremely humbling to be associated with the editors and fellow contributors as well,” he said. “Perhaps something I have contributed will help someone, some organization, or some businesses meet the demands of leading and following in the home, in church or in a global marketplace.”

Daily Reflector – February 4, 2008
Engineers win NSF Grant

A team of professors from the Department of Engineering has received a National Science Foundation grant totaling more than $136,000 to design and develop new teaching methods for bioprocess engineering at the undergraduate level.

The project, “Design and Development of Educational Modules for Bioprocess Engineering,” will be led by engineering professors Richard Williams, Loren Limberis and Stephanie Sullivan.

“This grant will provide us with more capability to develop innovative and effective methods to inspire eastern North Carolina students from all groups, especially those who are underrepresented, to consider and succeed in engineering,” Williams said.

The grant will enable the team to design new learning materials that will engage students’ understanding of engineering concepts, particularly in the field of bioprocessing.

Daily Reflector - February 18, 2008
Professor to judge car design

Gerald Micklow, a Department of Engineering professor, has been selected to serve as a design judge this April for a competition offered by the Society of Automotive Engineers at the Virginia International Raceway. Students will compete to design and produce small formula-style racing cars.

Micklow, who has designed and built race cars including Indy 500 cars and has worked with both NASCAR and Joe Gibbs Racing and other motor sports companies, is the director of the engineering program's Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.

Faculty News

TECS Faculty Senators and Alternates
Connie Ciesielski and Charles Coddington have been elected as faculty senators, with Karl Abrahamson and Nasseh Tabrizi named the alternates.

Current TECS Senators:
     • Leslie Pagliari, until 2009
     • Connie Ciesielski, until 2010
     • Charles Coddington, until 2010

Current TECS Alternates:
     • K. Gopalakrishnan, until 2009
     • Karl Abrahamson, until 2010
     • Nasseh Tabrizi, until 2010

Jeanne-Marie Lawrence - (Technology Systems) - Recently certified as a “Certified Supply Chain Professional.” The exam covers four main subject areas: Supply Chain fundamentals, Building a Competitive Infrastructure, Managing Customer and Supplier Relationships, and using Information Technology to enable the Supply Chain Management. The certification was administered by APICS, the Association for Operations Management.

Qin Ding - (Computer Science) - Recently published an article “Support-Less Association Rule Mining Using Tuple Count Cube” (co-authored by William Perrizo), in Journal of Information & Knowledge Management, Dec. 2007 and also published a book chapter “Mining Association Rules from XML Data” (co-authored by Gnanasekaran Sundarraj) in the book Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery Technologies in Jan. 2008.

Evelyn Brown - (Engineering) - Spoke to the local chapter of the Professional Engineers of North Carolina on February 28th. She discussed Machine-part cell formation.

Brown is also being awarded more than $38,000 for her proposal entitled “Mid-Currituck Sound Bridge - Project Management” sponsored by N.C. Department of Transportation.

Gerald Micklow - (Engineering) - Delivered a poster presentation at Nash Community College for the AVRC Automotive Technology Display which included North Carolina Senator A.B. Swindell.

Micklow also had a paper accepted for publication and presentation at the Turbo Expo 2008 to be held in Berlin, Germany, June 9-13, 2008. The paper is entitled “A Comprehensive Fuel Spray Model for High Pressure Fuel Injectors.”

Micklow was also selected to serve as a Design Judge for the SAE Student Competition held at the Virginia International Raceway coming up in April.

Merwan Mehta - (Technology Systems) - Dr. Merwan Mehta co-authored a paper with Dr. Richard Monroe, titled “Supply Chain Improvement Utilizing the SCOR® Model in Combination with Lean Six Sigma,” and was published in the International Journal of Agile Manufacturing.

Junhua Ding and Nasseh Tabrizi - (Computer Science) - Their paper, entitled “Modeling and Model Checking of a Clinical Diagnostic Algorithm” was accepted by IEEE. Dr. Ding also had to other papers accepted, one by ICSE and the other at the 23rd Annual ACM Symposium.

K. Gopalakrishnan - (Computer Science) - He attended the 8th International Conference on Cryptology in India and presented a paper which was co-authored by a professor from Chile and a PhD student from UC-Riverside. The paper entitled “Solving Discrete Logarithms from Partial Knowledge of the Key” was published by Springer-Verlag.

David Bucci - (Advising Center) –The National Academic Advising Association Journal published David’s review of the book “Earnings from Learning: The rise of for-profit universities.”

Ed Howard and Rick Williams - (Engineering) - Ed and Rick were both honored at the ASEE National Conference with Best Paper Presentation Awards. Ed’s presentation was called “An Introductory Engineering Design Project Utilizing Finite Element Analysis and Rapid Prototyping” and Rick’s work was entitled “A Versatile and Economical Apparatus for Experiments in Statics.” Great work guys.

Keith Sylvester - (Construction Management) - Was one of 15 proposals for a teaching grant that was recommended for funding by the Teaching Grants Committee and was recently approved for the summer 2008 session.

Bryan Wheeler- (Construction Management) – Opened 2008 with a mission trip to Nicaragua where he helped a small, very poor village create its first clean water supply and repaired and reconstructed schools, a hospital delivery room for premature babies, and a church building. You can see more about Bryan’s trip in the January NEXUS.

Gene Dixon - (Engineering) - Gene was included in the book “The Art of Fellowship…How Great Followers Can Create Great Leaders and Organizations” recently released at the end of January. He authored Chapter 12 entitled “Getting Together” and addressed the issue of understanding that leading and following truly are interdependent roles in the leadership process. The book is a part of the award winning Warren Bennis Signature Series.

Erol Ozan, BJ Kim and Paul Kauffmann – (Engineering) - Congratulations on being awarded more than $223,000 for your proposal entitled “Mid-Currituck Sound Bridge – Traffic Studies” sponsored by N.C. Department of Transportation.

Stephanie Sullivan - (Engineering) - Received some kudos from a recent Service Learning event sponsored by the University Senate Subcommittee. Sullivan’s Project Management class received high praise for their service-learning projects from representative of the Ronald McDonald House and a soccer group for Disabled Children. Gene Dixon’s Give-to-the-Troops program was also commended for its efforts in the service-learning community.

Ron Sessoms, Donna Hollar and Erich Connell - (Construction Management) – From the 64th Annual International Builders Show in Orlando.

• Hollar was the team coach for an 11 student delegation from ECU and finished 14th out of 30 four year competing universities.
• Connell made two presentations at the NAHB. One was a third year report of findings that accounted for the decisions we have made, based on the research, in terms of reaching a plan for implementing the Residential Construction Concentration curriculum. The second presentation was as the past recipient of a NHE grant to attendees who may be seeking grant opportunities in the future with the National Housing Endowment (NHE).
• Sessoms, Connell and Hollar also sat on a panel for discussion with other groups to field questions for colleagues.
• Sessoms was involved in the Student Advisory Board for competitions and received a plaque on behalf of ECU’s Department of Construction Management as the first ever recipient of the National Housing Endowment’s $100,000 award.

Photo Gallery

Construction Management
Sigma Lambda Chi
Spring Induction Ceremony

Student Spotlight

Construction Management Student Competition

• 11 students participated and represented ECU at the 2008 International Builder’s Show
  

  Tyler W. Beam	Valerie D. Del
  Devin M. Fitzgerald	Parks D. Moss, Jr.
  Wade A. Nevitt	Daniel L. Nowell
  Douglas A. Payne, Jr.	Matthew F. Pulley
  Emerson L. Reich	Tyler K. Robinson
  Donald F. Stanley

• ECU’s team was supported by the Greenville-Pitt County Home Builders Association and the National Housing Endowment’s IBS Scholarship in the amount of $4000.00.
• Additionally, East Carolina Construction Association (ECCA), construction management’s student organization provided $500 in support.
• The student competition project was a 192 home subdivision in Windermere, Florida. ECU estimated the project would take 4.5 years to build, cost $74 million, and return $10.7 million in profit to the builder. The team put together a complete estimate, schedule, marketing plan, financial analysis, and management strategy for the project. This work was accomplished throughout the last 8 weeks of the fall 2007 semester.
• ECU placed 14th out of 30 four year schools competing.
• 2008 Winners in the 4-Yr Schools division were
  

  1st Arizona State

  2nd Brigham Young University Provo

  3rd Middle Tennessee State

  4th California Polytechnic State University San Obispo

  5th Colorado State University

  Rookie:  Lowa State

Technology Systems Sustainable Design Student Team Building Exercise

Dr. Robert Chin and members of the upcoming Sustainable Building Design Competition held the last of the team building exercises before the local and state competitions. Each team will be comprised of members from each of the three programs—Pitt Community College’s AAS in Architectural Technology, ECU’s BS in Interior Design, and ECU’s BS in Design. The team exercise was an egg drop competition conducted in the Science and Technology Building. The egg drop competition is intended to get the students to know one another before the NCSBDC. The local competition will take place in the Mendenhall Social Room on Friday April 11 with the state competition being held in Raleigh on Saturday April 19.

Announcements and Upcoming Events

Spring 2008 Graduation

TECS College Recognition Ceremony - The spring 2008 College of Technology and Computer Science Recognition Ceremony will be held on Saturday, May 10th at 6:00 PM in Wright Auditorium.  Doors will open one hour prior to the ceremony and tickets are required to attend.  Graduating students will be able to pick up tickets for their guests through their college department and will be notified in early February how the process will work.  Seniors that will be completing their course work in the summer or this fall will be able to attend a similar ceremony offered in December.  If you have any questions, please call the Dean’s Office at (252) 328-9600. 

University Graduation Ceremony - The spring 2008 commencement ceremony will be held Saturday May 10, 2008 at 10:00am in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.  This ceremony is separate from the TECS Recognition Ceremony as it is for all ECU graduates.  For more information or details about the university ceremony, go to www.ecu.edu/commencement/college_school.cfm

Birthdays and Special Events

For Giggles

A new program-Installing Husband 1.0

INSTALLING HUSBAND 1.0
Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance - particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0. and Golf Clubs 4.1. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,
Desperate

Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while
Husband 1.0 is an Operating System.

Please enter the command: "http: I Thought You Loved Me.htm" and try
to download Tears 6.2 and don't forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.

If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then
automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

But remember, over use of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background, that will eventually seize control of all your system resources).

Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly.

You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Hot Food 3.0 and others.

Good Luck,
Tech Support