Cal Poly Update
The E-Newsletter for University Friends and Alumni

:: Alumni :: University News :: Today's Students :: Faculty & Staff ::Coming Up

Alumni
Homecoming 2006: Oct. 19-22
Come to Cal Poly's Grand Reunion
This fall, come celebrate with the grads of 1956 at the 2006 Grand Reunion. The event will celebrate the 50th Reunion of the Class of 1956, as well as the "official" return of women students to campus in the fall of 1956, and all of the classes prior. This year's Grand Reunion is Oct. 19-22 during Homecoming. Stay for the weekend, tour town and campus, enjoy wine tasting and a tailgate BBQ Oct. 21 on the O'Neill Green in front of the Orfalea College of Business before the big game, and watch the Mustangs clash with Jackrabbits of South Dakota State University on the new Memorial Field at Alex G. Spanos Stadium. The schedule of events for Homecoming 2006 is set to be posted online in early September at www.homecoming.calpoly.edu. Watch for more details there and in Cal Poly Update in September.

CPAA Travel 2007
See Barcelona, Mykonos, and Lake Como and More
Join Cal Poly Alumni, Parents, and Friends on our 2007 travel programs to Spain, Italy, and a cruise of the Mediterranean. You don't have to be a member of the Cal Poly Alumni Association - or an alum - to sign up. The spring 2007 trip to Spain tours the fashionable and modern city of Barcelona, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the sunny coastal town of San Sebastian. In summer 2007, cruise the Mediterranean and Aegean seas on a six-star yacht, through Nauplion, Santorini and Mykonos, Greece; Kusadasi, Turkey; and Sorrento, Italy, before disembarking in Civitavecchia, the port serving Rome. CPAA's fall 2007 trip tours northern Italy's beautiful Lake district, with stays and cruises on Lake Como and Lake Maggiore and tours through Renaissance towns and villas.
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Alumni in the News
Grad Poised to Become University of North Texas President
Gretchen M. Bataille (B.S., English, 1966, M.A., English Education, 1967) is poised to be appointed as the President of the University of North Texas next week by its Board of Regents. Formerly the top academic official for the University of North Carolina system, she was tapped in July as the sole finalist to be the next president at UNT. Bataille, 61, is a scholar of Native American literature and will be the first woman to hold the presidency at UNT. But she isn't the only alum in the news this month. One engineering alum sweated out his first weeks at the Philly Eagles training camp; another was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame; another climbed the tallest mountain in Europe to raise money for breast cancer research; another was in the news for launching a steel foundry in Nevada, to name just a few. Find out who made headlines -- and if you know any of them!
Read more about Cal Poly Alumni in the News this month

Still Time to Join August Welcome Events for New Students & Parents
Cal Poly Alumni Association chapters all over California, as well as the Boise and Seattle areas, are hosting New Student Welcome Events Aug. 13 (Aug. 20 in Fresno). The picnic gatherings offer new Cal Poly students and their parents a great way to learn about Cal Poly and meet fellow students and alumni before leaving home for college. Come meet other area alums and help new students and parents find out about Cal Poly. Cost is only $8. For event information, locations and details see:
http://alumni.calpoly.edu/events/nswe_brochure.pdf
http://alumni.calpoly.edu/events/nswe_form.pdf

University News

Aerospace Master’s Program to Offer Specialization in Space Systems
Cal Poly is now the only campus in the 23-member California State University System to offer a master’s degree specialization in Space Systems Engineering. The new degree recently received its final approval from the Cal Poly Academic Senate. According to Aerospace Engineering Department Chair Jordi Puig-Suari, graduate students in this specialization will develop an understanding of all subsystems in a spacecraft or missile/launch vehicle and how they are combined to form a complete space vehicle. The program also presents the basic principles of systems engineering and their application to space vehicle design.
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Wine Barrel Safety Demonstration Makes Waves
Cal Poly Structural Engineering Professor Charles Chadwell and his students have been testing wine barrel stacks to find a way to store them more safely in earthquake country. Professor Chadwell demonstrated his innovative modifications for wine barrel racks during an industry gathering Aug. 2 in his lab on campus. Using a full-scale shake table and a four-barrel stack, the professor showed media and wine industry representatives a recreation of the Northridge earthquake, and how the racks and stacks held up.
More
Read the Tribune story
Read the Wines & Vines story
Read the Spring 2006 Cal Poly Magazine
story

Local High School Students Thrive
in Cal Poly Upward Bound Program
The 51 students in Cal Poly's 2006 Upward Bound program just finished the six-week summer residency program. Upward Bound emphasizes math, science and English skills while giving high school students exposure to aspects of college life including living away from home and learning to debate world affairs. Cal Poly is one of 800 universities nationwide participating in the federally funded program, which is open to students whose whose parents have little education. The San Luis Obispo Tribune profiled the Central Coast students in this summer's Cal Poly Upward Bound program.
Read the Tribune Story

Cal Poly Arts Announces 2006-07 Season Lineup
Cal Poly Arts has announced its season lineup of performances for 2006-07. Celtic favorites The Chieftains, comedian Jon Lovitz, "The Pirates of Penzance" and Les Ballets Trockadero are among the acts coming to campus this year in the Performing Arts Center or Spanos Theatre. Subscription tickets for the new 2006-07 Cal Poly Arts performing arts series are now on sale; single ticket sales begin Sept. 5.
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Spanos Stadium Gets Ready for Football Season
The grass is getting greener on Memorial Field as Cal Poly gets ready for football season. Though construction on the new grandstands on the west side of the field will still be going on when season starts, all Mustang home football games will be played in the Alex G. Spanos Stadium while renovation of the stadium continues this fall. Heavy winter and late spring rains delayed completion of the stadium. But construction crews have been working weekends to deliver the project in time for the fall football season. In late July, crews installed new irrigation and sod. The new turf is now on the ground and growing. And new state-of-the-art sports lighting has been installed on the east and west sides of the field. Football kicks off Sept. 2 with the first home game against Fort Lewis College.
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See the 2006 Football Schedule | Read the Tribune article on the stadium

50th Anniversary of The Return of Women Students to Cal Poly
Women were a part of Cal Poly -- as teachers and students -- when it was founded in 1901. But in 1929, women were banned to save money during state budget cuts. Cal Poly was an all-male school for more than two decades. By the 1950s, Central Coast parents wanted Cal Poly opened to their daughters -- and started pressing legislators for a co-ed Cal Poly. Fall 2006 marks the 50th anniversary of the "official return of women to campus as students. In fall 1956, 250 of Cal Poly's 4,000 students were women. Click Here to read about the return of women to campus.

Were you one of the women who came to campus in 1956? Click Here to E-mail us Your Story! Please include the words "Women of '56" in the Subject Line

Today's Students

Student CubeSats' Fate Unknown
Russians Working to Determine Cause of Rocket Failure
Cal Poly aerospace graduate students got a taste of the drama of aerospace July 26 when the Russian rocket carrying their picosatellites launched successfully -- but then failed shortly thereafter. The student team on the ground in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, stayed for a final briefing from Cosmodrome officials as to the cause of the rocket failure. Grad students Armen Toorian and Lori Brooks, along with Cal Poly Sponsored Programs Director Jill Keezer, are “on the ground” in Baikonur. The next CubeSat project launch, involving universities from across the U.S. and the globe, is set for Dec. 2.
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Click Here to watch the launch video | Click Here for audio of the launch
Read the Space Daily story

Cal Poly Students Win Award for Concrete Sculpture
Five Cal Poly College of Architecture and Environmental Design students received an Award of Excellence at the 2006 Post Tensioning Institute Awards held May 8 in Reno, Nev. Students Susan Smilanich, Jon Voorhies, Ben Green, Mike McDonnell, and Robert Pacheco won for their design of a concrete blade structure. The new 20-foot “flower” replaced the deteriorating original, “A Sculptural Study in Prestressed Concrete,” built by CAED students Steve Gilmore, Mark Haselton, Ken Minor and the late Dan McMann in 1963 as one of the first experimental structures at Cal Poly.
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Cal Poly Students Second in National Floral Design Competition
Cal Poly floral design students took second place in the National Student Floral Design Contest held recently in Washington, D.C., as part of the American Institute of Floral Design Symposium. The Mustang floral design team missed first place by only two points, coming in just behind Mississippi State. This year’s competition included teams from 12 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. In all, 50 students participated.
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Lansford Working his Way Up with the Chicago Cubs
Social studies major Josh Lansford is following in the footsteps of his father by choosing to travel down the professional baseball path. Lansford is the son of Oakland Athletics great Carney Lansford, who played 14 years in the major leagues, including 10 years with Oakland. The younger Lansford left Cal Poly and the Mustang Men's Baseball Team after being drafted this spring following his junior year after the Chicago Cubs selected him in the sixth round of the amateur draft.
Read the Tribune story

Faculty & Staff

Tong Receives International Dairy Research Award
Cal Poly Professor and Dairy Products Technology Center Director Phil Tong has received the International Dairy Foods Association Research Award. The award recognizes leading researchers in the field of applied dairy science. Tong was recognized for his research in dairy ingredients processing, functionality and composition control.  Working directly with the dairy and food industries, Tong and his Cal Poly research application team have helped processors use dairy ingredients in the development of new dairy-based beverages as well as bakery products and other foods.
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Professor Advising HUD ‘Cityscape' Journal
Cal Poly professor and City and Regional Planning Department head William Siembieda has been appointed to the advisory board of “Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research.” Darlene F. Williams, Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development made the appointment. The journal is funded by HUD.
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Construction Management Professor
Wins ‘Outstanding Educator Award'
Cal Poly professor Barbara Jackson recently received the Associated Schools of Construction “Outstanding Educator Award” at the 42nd Annual ASC International Conference in Fort Collins Colo. The annual award is presented to a faculty member of a four-year ASC member school. It recognizes the winning faculty member's contribution to construction education, excellence in teaching, service to the ASC and dedication to the construction profession.
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Architecture Dean Emeritus Receives Prestigious Service Award
Paul Neel, dean emeritus of Cal Poly's College of Architecture and Environmental Design, has been awarded the Octavius Morgan Distinguished Service Award for 2005. The award, presented by the California Department of Consumer Affairs, recognizes architects for their contribution to the profession and the people of California. Neel, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, was recognized April 27 for his years of service on the California Architects Board.
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New Director of Special Gifts Announced
Cal Poly's University Advancement Division has appointed its first director of special gifts. Mike McCall, Cal Poly's associate vice president/chief development officer, announced the appointment of Anne Harris to the position. She joined Cal Poly's advancement team on August 1. Harris was formerly the assistant vice president for development at CSU Stanislaus. She has served the CSU system for more than five years with responsibilities ranging from project management to major gift fundraising. Prior to her role as assistant vice president for development, Harris was the director of community affairs for CSU Stanislaus.
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Passings: Former Education Professor Helen Lee Wenger
Helen Lee Hensleigh Wenger, 83, passed away July 20, 2006, in Iowa City, Iowa. She was born in rural Page County, Iowa, Nov. 21, 1922. After graduating from the University of Iowa, her elementary teaching was done in Florida, Washington, Illinois, North Carolina, and Hamburg, Iowa. She earned an M.E. from the University of Illinois, Urbana, and went on to become a professor of Education at Cal Poly. She also taught at Eastern Illinois University, University of Redlands, Tarkio College, and at the University of California, Riverside Campus Extension. She served on the California State Curriculum Commission in Reading and Language Arts, and was a consultant for the initial Peace Corps training programs at Cal Poly.
Read the obituary in the Iowa Press-Enterprise

Passings: Former Athletic Director, Swim Coach Dick Anderson
Dick Anderson, Cal Poly athletics director from 1963-68 and emeritus professor of physical education, passed away on Aug. 3 at his home. Anderson coached the swimming and water polo teams between 1947 and 1968. He was hired by Cal Poly in 1947 in the Physical Education Department, where he was a professor and professor emeritus until 1987. He was the Swimming and Water Polo Coach for 35 years, and coached 40 athletes who went on to become All Americans, including one Olympic medalist.
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Coming Up

Performing Arts Center 10 Year Gala Celebration is Aug. 26
Things will get a little crazy Aug. 26 when the PAC Ball comes to town. The zany revelry will pair a dazzling array of non-stop entertainment with delightful food and drink to celebrate the Performing Arts Center’s 10-year anniversary. Expect the same wild frenzy of fun of the Hard Hat Ball that opened the PAC in 1996 – a magical night unmatched in San Luis Obispo until this 10-year anniversary event. The continuous live music, dancing and entertainment, as well as fabulous fare from the Central Coast’s top restaurants, wineries, caterers and bakeries, will be served up at 7 p.m. and continue past midnight all throughout the Performing Arts Center and Spanos Theatre.Now is the time to purchase tickets - $75 each, same price as 10 years ago. Buy tickets online at  www.PACSLO.org or call (805) 756-2787.
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Cal Poly Collegians Reunite
for Annual Big Band Dance Concert is Aug. 26
The Cal Poly Collegians Alumni Big Band will present their annual reunion concert at the Madonna Inn Ballroom On Saturday, August 26, from 7 to 11 p.m. The band will perform Big Band jazz and swing for listening and dancing. Selections include hits from the ‘40s through the ‘60s, along with arrangements from more contemporary big bands. Admission is free, but donations for Cal Poly Scholarships will be accepted. The Collegians big band was founded in 1937 by long-time Music Department Head Harold P. Davidson. During their college years, band members played dances and concerts in San Luis Obispo and throughout California.
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More event listings

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