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

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

Alumni News

Travel with Alumni in 2008!
The Cal Poly Alumni Association's Travel Program has already scheduled three trips in 2008: to Peru, Holland, and Sicily. The Peruvian trip includes an excursion to Machu Picchu, the legendary archaeological site carved from the Andes by the ancient Incas. You don't have to be a Cal Poly alum to travel with CPAA -- parents and friends are always welcome. Find out about the 2008 trips now. The last 2007 trip -- to Northern Italy's beautiful lakes region -- is full and currently has a waiting list.
Read more about CPAA's trips abroad

Alumni in the News: Purple Hearts, Fellowships and Concerts for Lefty
Cal Poly alumni were all over the news last month. Those making headlines and TV News video clips include an engineering grad on the mend from injuries in Iraq who received a Purple Heart, a June city and regional planning grad heading to Washington, D.C., with a prestigious fellowship, and a band with a novel name gaining critical notice and concert time. Do you know Scissors for Lefty? Find out...
Cal Poly Alumni in the News: July roundup

Coming in August to a Town Near You: New Student Welcome Events
The annual New Student Welcome Events (NSWE) are summer gatherings for new Cal Poly students and their families. Across California and the west, Cal Poly Alumni Association chapters and groups host outdoor picnics or barbecues for all incoming students and their families.

Most of this year's NSWEs are set for Aug. 12 throughout California, as well as Boise and Seattle. (Check the CPAA calendar for specific times, locations and dates.)

The events are a great way for first-year and transfer students and their families meet each other and to learn about Cal Poly from alumni, parents and current students. Cal Poly alumni living in or near communities with a New Student Welcome Event are invited to attend.
Click here to find locations and details about August NSWEs

University News

Cal Poly Hosts Chemistry Summer Camp
for Blind & Sight Impaired High-Schoolers
Cal Poly hosted "Access Chemistry 2007," the first annual hands-on summer laboratory chemistry workshop for blind and sight-impaired high school students. The camp was held on campus the last week of June. Participating students' ages ranged from 14 to 18. The workshop was led by Dennis Fantin, a Cal Poly chemistry instructor and practicing biophysicist who is himself blind. Fantin has developed techniques and procedures which make the chemistry laboratory a rich environment for visually impaired students.
Read about Access Chemistry

 

New Animal Science Facilities Coming Online
Cal Poly’s new Animal Nutrition Center is scheduled to open in August -- the second of two major department facilities to come online within the past year. The new Beef Center opened in October 2007 with the 50th Annual Bull Test Sale. The Beef Center has since added a student residence, and continues to enhance its office and two laboratories inside the multi-purpose building. Next up is the Animal Nutrition Center, expected to be a fully functioning feed-mill by August. The third major construction project for Animal Science, the new Meat Processing Center, will go out to bid this fall. The three new buildings are designed to raise the bar in animal science education and bring the Cal Poly program into new territory.
Read more about the new Animal Science facilities

Forbes Pipe Organ Debuts at the PAC
With Pros, Devotees on the Keys
It took the Massachusetts-based company C.B. Fisk nearly 22,000 hours and 30 employees to build the Forbes Pipe Organ organ during the past year, according to project manager Andrew Gingery. The new organ in Harman Hall of the Performing Arts Center's Christopher Cohan Center at Cal Poly cost more than $1 million, a gift from Cal Poly and PAC supporters Bert and Candace Forbes. The organ’s inner workings consist of two levels of nearly 2,800 pipes of all shapes and sizes that mimic sounds of woodwind instruments like the flute, oboe and clarinet. The organ made its debut in a series of concerts in June -- one of them a Sunday event featuring a number of local residents who signed up to spend 10 minutes at the keyboard.
Read the SLO Tribune story

Kennedy Library's Julia Morgan Materials Now Cataloged
The nation's largest archive of materials created by pioneering architect Julia Morgan's is housed in Cal Poly’s Kennedy Library. The Julia Morgan Collection has now been cataloged for easier access by scholars and students worldwide. It took two years to catalog the Collection, which includes thousands of original architectural plans, drawings, photographs, sketchbooks, journals, correspondence and other documents. The archive chronicles Morgan’s education in Paris at the turn of the century and her prolific and trailblazing career -- one that helped open the field of architecture to women.
Read more about the Julia Morgan archive, plus web links

New College of Engineering Facilities Win Design Award
Cal Poly College of Engineering facilities, the Bonderson Projects Center and Engineering IV, recently received the Award of Commendation in the new construction category from the Obispo Beautiful Association. The association is a community organization of architects, design-builders, landscape designers, artists, and other design professionals interested in the quality of the built environment of San Luis Obispo. The group recognizes outstanding aesthetics for properties ranging from local residences to large institutional projects.
More on the design award

Today's Students
Concrete Canoe Team Aces Coed Sprint Race, Paddles to 5th at Nationals in Seattle
Cal Poly students took first place in coed sprint, took home the top artistic design award and finished fifth overall in the national collegiate Concrete Canoe Competition, held recently in Seattle. Cal Poly's concrete canoe team finished first in the coed sprint race and a second in “final product” judging. Cal Poly also brought home the ACI Innovative Design Award, which recognized the canoe’s unique, M.C. Escher-inspired tile mosaic design detail. Each year, students from Cal Poly’s Society of Civil Engineers (SCE) pit themselves against teams from approximately 220 colleges across the U.S. in a year-long contest involving design know-how, project management, engineering expertise, oral and written presentations, endurance, imagination and sheer muscle.
Read more about the Concrete Canoe Nationals

Faculty & Staff

CENG Professor Receives Service Fellowship
Lynne Slivovsky, a Hood endowed professor who teaches computer and electrical engineering, was recently selected as a Faculty Fellow in the Service Learning for Political Engagement Program, a joint venture between the California Campus Compact and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Slivovsky, one of just 25 faculty members from public and private universities across California to be honored with the fellowship, proposed a new multi-disciplinary service learning course in museum design. “Students will create museum exhibits for the local community that highlight sustainability in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education,” she said.
More on Professor Slivovsky

Engineering Professor Franklin Receives NSF CAREER Grant
Diana Franklin, assistant professor of computer science, has received a prestigious five-year grant from the National Science Foundation’s Early Career Development Program. The $300,000 award is the first of its kind for a professor in the College of Engineering. “As the first recipient of an NSF CAREER grant in the College of Engineering, Diana has certainly raised the bar,” said CENG Dean Mohammad Noori. “What she has achieved is a significant milestone in our journey to move the College to higher grounds of national visibility.”
More on the NSF Grant for Diana Franklin

Cal Poly Professor Speaks on Sustainability at UCSB
Cal Poly Architecture Professor and Co-Director of Cal Poly's Renewable Energy Institute Margot McDonald spoke at a sustainability conference Monday (June 25). McDonald spoke on the advancement of sustainability in higher education at the 6th Annual UC, CSU, CCC Sustainability Conference. Cal Poly will host the 2008 conference.
Read more about the sustainability conference

Physics Prof's 'Betallica' Web Site, Band Cause a Stir
Betallica, the band, fuses heavy metal and the Fab Four in the tradition of spoof rock. Cal Poly Physics Professor Dave Dixon is the band's Web master (two of the musicians/parodists are friends of his from Milwaukee.) They now have a national record contract and a key fan: the drummer for the real heavy metal band Metallica
Read more about Professor Dixon and Betallica

Emeritus Professor Named Fellow
of American Helicopter Society
Cal Poly Professor Emeritus E. Roberts “Bob” Wood has been named an honorary fellow of the American Helicopter Society (AHS) International. Wood was Professor of Aerospace Engineering and also Chair of the Department at Cal Poly from 1985-88. He is also an internationally renowned aeronautical engineer and a Professor Emeritus at the Naval Postgraduate School.
Read more about Professor Wood's award

Passings: Computer Science Professor Emeritus Emile Attala
Cal Poly Computer Science Professor Emeritus Emile Edward Attala, 73, passed away June 18 at his San Luis Obispo home. Attala was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1934. His undergraduate degree was in petroleum engineering, but he emigrated to the United States and earned a master's degree from UC Berkeley in computer engineering. Attala was part of a three-man NASA team which programmed the back-up computer navigation system for Apollo 13 -- a mission later dramatized by the Tom Hanks movie of the same name. Soon after the successful Apollo 13 rescue, he left the aerospace industry to become an associate professor in the new computer science department at Cal Poly. He obtained his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California Santa Barbara while teaching at Cal Poly. In 1978 he was appointed chairman of the Computer Science and Statistics Department, and retired from Cal Poly as a professor emeritus in 1997.
Read more on Professor Attala

Coming Up
Mozart, Peter Pan, and the
2007-08 Cal Poly Arts Season
Events coming up on campus in July include several Mozart Festival performances, a production of the family favorite musical "Peter Pan." Find out the details -- plus a link to the Cal Poly Arts 2007-08 Season lineup of performers.
Arts & entertainment coming up on campus in July

 

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