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Alumni
PolyLink is Here! Are you 'In' Yet?
PolyLink, Cal Poly's Online Community, is here and live at www.calpolylink.com. Did you get the e-mail with your first-time login ID code? PolyLink is the top online social network for connecting with other Mustangs. Cal Poly has always enjoyed a strong tradition of alumni hiring alumni, and PolyLink is the place to post your professional information, career milestones, and let other alumni know you're looking for a career move -- or you're looking to hire. It's also a secure place to post photos and reconnect with former classmates. And, if you log in and create your personal profile page by Oct. 15 -- you could win an iPod.
Click Here to find out more about PolyLink,
safe social networking -- and the iPods
Look for Cal Poly Magazine in your mailbox at home next week (Sept. 24-28). If you are alumni, your first-time log-in code will be printed on your magazine label. If you are a CPAA member, your print newsletter also has your code on your mailing label.
Alumni in the News:
Unicycling, Migration Banking, and More
Cal Poly alumni were in the news for all kinds of reasons over the past few weeks. One is a trustee at College of the Sequoias. One's gaining sports fame for extreme...unicycling. One alumna's salsa company is heating up; another alumna just got a cool promotion to Vice President for Finance. Plus, take a quiz on "Five Things You Didn't Know about John Madden."
Read about Cal Poly alumni in the news lately
Homecoming 2007: Attention Class of '57 & Earlier Grads
It's a Grand Reunion We're Having
The year was 1957. Women were back at Cal Poly -- a whole 200 of them. Pants were pegged, letterman jackets, buzz cuts and petticoats were in, and those coeds on campus were still big news. Barbara Foley, a sophomore Animal Husbandry major, was crowned Homecoming Queen. Where were you in '57? If the answer is Cal Poly, come back for Homecoming 2007 and your Grand Reunion. Alumni and guests from earlier classes are welcome at the Grand Reunion Friday, Nov. 9. Campus tours, mixers, and a formal dinner are all just part of Homecoming Weekend. All alumni are invited back for the annual Wine Tasting & Tailgate Barbecue on the business lawn -- and the big game against North Dakota State! It's all happening at Homecoming Nov. 8-10.
Click here for more details on the Grand Reunion
and Homecoming 2007
Events for Alumni
| RSVP by September 26
for Cal Poly Day
at Swanton Pacific Ranch
Enjoy a Santa Maria-style BBQ, train rides, and tours at Cal Poly's Swanton Pacific Ranch outside Santa Cruz Sunday, Oct. 7, from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Bring the kids, your walking shoes, sunscreen and get ready to have some fun -- complete with steam train rides.
Cal Poly Day is an annual fall tradition at Swanton Pacific Ranch, hosted by Cal Poly's College of Agriculture, Food & Environmental Sciences.
Cal Poly Swanton Pacific Ranch web site |
Hit the Pool
for Scholarships
September 29
The annual Alumni Swim Meet starts at noon in Mott Pool Saturday, Sept. 29. Proceeds benefit the Anderson Aquatic Scholarship Endowment, which awards two scholarships per year to student athletes in the swimming and diving program.
The Anderson Aquatic board is also supporting the Athletic Department’s goal of building a new Olympic-size pool to replace the old Mott Pool. Sign up for the event, and stay the afternoon to enjoy a barbecue and then watch the Mustang football team tackle Northern Colorado in the new stands at Spanos Stadium!
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Head to Davis for the Horseshoe Classic
October 13
The Mustangs are facing the Aggies on their home turf in Davis in a football showdown Saturday, Oct. 13 – on Davis's stadium dedication weekend.
The Cal Poly Alumni Association and Cal Poly Athletics are looking to bring in backup: lots of Cal Poly fans in the stands to cheer on the Mustangs. Join Cal Poly for a pre-game lunch and some great football in Davis.
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University
News
15th Straight Year!
Cal Poly Is Best in the West in U.S. News Rankings
For the 15th year in a row, Cal Poly has been rated the best public-master's university in the West by U.S. News & World Report in its 2008 America 's Best Colleges guidebook. Cal Poly ranked 10th in the magazine's overall list of the West's best universities, including both public and private institutions, that provide "a full range of undergraduate and master's-level programs but few, if any, doctoral programs."
Read more about Cal Poly's Rankings
Engineering Team Wins First International Alternative Vehicle Competition
The Cal Poly Human Powered Vehicle team came home from Maracaibo, Venezuela as international champions in early September. The team was victorious at the first American Society of Mechanical Engineers Human Powered Vehicle Challenge held outside the United States. With a top speed of 40 miles per hour, “Matrix,” Cal Poly’s lightweight and streamlined HPV, took first in all categories: design, sprints and endurance. Seventeen students built the streamlined bike, which took second place overall at the 2007 ASME HPV Competition held last May.
Read more about the students' international victory
President Baker Testifying at Congressional Summit Today
Cal Poly President Warren J. Baker will give testimony today before a U.S. House Education and Labor Sub-Committee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning and Competitiveness. He will discuss the growing need for graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. He will also share information with sub-committee members about steps Cal Poly is taking to address the need and comment on additional policy measures that might be implemented at the federal level to help us address the issue at the state and local level. The sub-committee meeting is part of the Competitiveness Crisis Council summit meeting today (Sept. 21) in Pomona. The summit topic is "California is at Great Risk – Securing Our Competitiveness in a Global Market.”
Read President Baker's Testimony
Graphic Communication Study Shows Print More Trusted than Web
Despite the growth of the Internet and digital technology, the print industry will survive because its readers value it, a recent Cal Poly study found. A 224-page report from the university’s graphic communication department finds that people prefer to read printed materials more than information on computer screens. Readers also view print media as more credible than what they find on the Internet.
Read the SLO Tribune story on the study | Click here to download the full study(pdf)
Viticulture Major Students
Bottle First Wines
Students from Cal Poly's new Wine & Viticulture degree program began bottling the program's first wines in late August. The 2006 vintage is the first year students are involved in every phase of the wine making process. That includes growing the grapes on Cal Poly’s campus vineyards, wine making and marketing. Following Cal Poly’s learn-by-doing tradition, students worked under the supervision of winemaker Christian Roguenant at Baileyana Winery in Edna Valley.
Read the Media Advisory
Cal Poly, SLO PD Organizing
Neighborhood Block Parties Sept. 28
The City of San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly are sponsoring the first ever SLO Night with Your Neighbors Friday, Sept. 28, from 6 to 8 p.m. Participants are hosting neighborhood potlucks at 40 locations throughout the city that evening as a way for students and long-term residents to get to know each other, and start the year off on a positive footing.
Read more about SLO Night with Your Neighbors event
Today's
Students
National Recognition for Engineering Students' Prosthetic Hip Design
A team of Cal Poly materials engineering students designed a prosthetic hip component recently, winning second place in the American Society of Metals’ Materials Education Foundation 2007 Undergraduate Design Competition. The team’s design, a new shock dampening neck, could help ensure that fracture of ceramic components in a total hip replacement is less likely in the event of a traumatic accident. The project was completed as part of a required course in the Materials Engineering Department, taught by Blair London and Trevor Harding.
Read more about the prosthetic hip component design team
Cal Poly Students Win 14 Awards in National Floral Design Competition
Cal Poly floral design students were awarded 14 top 10 honors in the National Student Floral Design Contest held recently in Palm Desert, as part of the American Institute of Floral Design Symposium. Members of the Mustang Floral Design Team received more overall top 10 awards than any other school in the competition. In addition to the 14 awards, Cal Poly team member Nicolette Lynch was awarded a $1,500 scholarship from the AIFD Foundation for the 2007-08 school year. This year’s competition included teams from 15 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, In all, 60 students participated.
Read more on the Floral Design Team awards
New Spin on Cheese and Crackers
Cal Poly Students Win Third Place
In National New-Food Product Contest
A team of Cal Poly food science students won third place in the national Danisco Knowledge Award competition calling for new and unique food or beverage products. The product, Let’s Dip, includes a gourmet artichoke cheese dip and unique honey flavored crackers. Let’s Dip was created by team leader Paula Durongwong, Scott Gualco and Pamela Quok. This is the second time in four years that Cal Poly has placed in the top three.
Read more on the new-food product contest
Faculty
& Staff
Bio Prof Researching Ocean Monitoring Effort
A Cal Poly professor is working with the California Sea Grant Foundation in a major effort to begin monitoring protected ocean areas off the Central Coast. Biology Professor Dean Wendt is working with Sea Grant Marine Advisor Rick Star to lead the collaborative fisheries project. Scientists have been awarded $2 million to begin monitoring ecological and economic effects of recently designated Central Coast marine protected areas that ban or limit fishing in about 18 percent of state waters between Santa Barbara and San Mateo counties.
Read more about Professor Wendt's work
Professor Emeritus is Foster Mom to 20 Children
Marylud Baldwin finds joy in serving as a foster mother — even when the mother of the child she is nurturing at any given time may have been a substance abuser during pregnancy. Baldwin, a Cal Poly Professor Emeritus, has been a foster mother for 27 years. She's taken in 20 youngsters, from newborns to 4-year-olds. She adopted seven of them.
Read the SLO Tribune column on Baldwin
See Professor Cano on Discovery Channel This Spring
Cal Poly microbiology Professor Raul Cano, known for being the first person to extract an organism from ancient amber, was one of the experts interviewed for a Discovery Channel documentary set to air this spring. Paul Lichtman and Cano regularly check out pieces of 40-million-year-old amber at the university. They were interviewed in August by the Discovery Channel.
Passings
Memorial Being Planned for
Kinesiology Professor Susan M. Puhl
Faculty, students, staff and alumni in Cal Poly’s Kinesiology Department are mourning the loss of friend and colleague Professor Susan Puhl, who passed away suddenly on August 6. Professor Puhl dedicated her professional life to physical education, physical activity and health and to providing opportunities for young people to participate in physical activity and further their own education as physical activity professionals. Members of the Cal Poly community will come together and celebrate her life in early October. For details, contact Camille O’Bryant in the department.
Read more about Professor Puhl's passing
Coming
Up
September 24 - October 12
Works of Swiss Architects on Display in Kennedy Library
Bold images of Swiss architectural design will be on display this fall at Cal Poly in “Ticinese Architecture in the World: Milestones and Protagonists 1970-2003.” The traveling exhibition will be located in the Gallery at the Commons, on the second floor in Cal Poly's Robert E. Kennedy Library. An opening reception sponsored by the Consulate General of Switzerland, San Francisco is scheduled in the Gallery from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., Monday, Sept. 24. The free and public exhibition can be seen during regular library hours through Oct. 12.
Photo courtesy of Andre Joosse.
Read more about the Ticinese exhibition
Make a Liszt:
Chamber Concert is September 28
Cal Poly Arts brings the Liszt Chamber Orchestra in concert featuring the works of
Franz Liszt
Friday, September 28, at
8 p.m. in Harman Hall at the
Christopher Cohan Center.
Since 1963, the Orchestra has played a significant role in Hungary’s musical life, touted as one of the world’s finest music ensembles. Janos Rolla, orchestra founder and one of Hungary’s foremost violinists, will lead the ensemble in a program including Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 10, Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, Dvorak’s Serenade in E Major, and more.
More on the Chamber Concert
Weird Al Yankovic Returning to his Roots with PAC Concert Oct. 9
His humble Cal Poly radio station bathroom beginning is legendary in San Luis Obispo. His songs are instant classics and his music videos are constantly downloaded. On Tuesday, October 9, Cal Poly Arts presents “Weird Al” Yankovic, backed by his longtime band, in concert at 7 p.m. at the Christopher Cohan Center on campus. Yankovic is returning to his Cal Poly roots as part of his multimedia "Straight Outta Lynwood" tour.
Details on the Weird Al concert Oct. 9
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