Faculty and Staff Notes

Presidential award winner Dr. Laura Bottomley coordinates engineering outreach activities for K-12 students, such as rocketry camp.

Engineer Wins Presidential Award for Excellence

Dr. Laura Bottomley, director of K-12 engineering outreach programs, won a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. She was one of 22 individuals and organizations honored July 9 by President Barack Obama.

The awards honor the crucial role that mentoring plays in the academic and personal development of students studying science or engineering and who belong to groups that are underrepresented in those fields. Candidates for the award are nominated by colleagues, administrators and students from their home institutions. The mentoring can involve students at any grade level from elementary through graduate school. In addition to being honored at a ceremony at the White House this fall, recipients receive awards of $10,000 to advance their mentoring efforts.

In her role as outreach director, Bottomley works with more than 5,000 students, 200 teachers and 500 parents each year. She leads summer camps for K-12 students, programs that send undergraduates and graduate students into schools to work with elementary and middle school students, training sessions for NC State engineering alumni who want to be volunteer teachers in their communities and assistance for K-12 teachers who want to introduce engineering concepts to young students.

Bottomley also directs NC State's Women in Engineering program, which works to boost the number of women engineers in academia and industry, and acts as a consultant to the N.C. Dept. of Public Instruction and Wake County Public Schools.

Interim Provost Warwick Arden is the new president of the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges.

Arden Leads Veterinary Colleges Group

Dr. Warwick Arden, interim provost and dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, has been named president of the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) for 2009-10.

The AAVMC coordinates the affairs of veterinary colleges in the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, representing more than 4,000 faculty, 5,000 staff, 10,000 students and 3,000 graduate students at more than 60 member institutions. As president, Arden heads the 11-member board of directors that works with the AAVMC national staff.

"Ours is an exceptionally diverse profession and the AAVMC is committed to training outstanding graduates who not only care for companion animals, horses, food animals and wildlife, but who support global public health by ensuring food safety and food security, investigating infectious diseases, advancing the frontiers of comparative medicine through leading biomedical research, and serving as stewards of our precious ecosystems," Arden said. 

He joined NC State as dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine in 2004 and was appointed interim provost in May.

Chancellor Search Committee Selected

NC State’s Board of Trustees approved a 18-member search committee to help identify a new chancellor for the university. Chaired by trustee Bob Jordan, the committee includes a diverse group of trustees, faculty, staff, students and alumni.

The committee began meeting this week and is expected to continue work throughout the summer and into the fall 2009 semester. Much of its work will take place in closed session. Its recommendations will be considered by University of North Carolina President Erskine Bowles and the UNC Board of Governors.

The chancellor search committee members are:

Trustees
Bob Jordan, Chair; Jack L. Cozort, Vice Chair; S. Lawrence Davenport, Ex Officio; Benjamin P. Jenkins III; Gayle S. Lanier; Barbara H. Mulkey; Steve F. Warren and Cassius S. Williams

Faculty
Meredith J. Davis, Dr. Todd R. Klaenhammer and Dr. Margery F. Overton

Academic Administrative
Dean Daniel L. Solomon

Staff
Steve A. Carlton

Students
Jim W. Ceresnak and Ali Kefeli

Alumni
Ken M. Atkins, A. Lynn Daniel and Wendell H. Murphy

Board Elects Officers, Launches Policy Review

The Board of Trustees on Monday elected S. Lawrence Davenport as chair, Cassius S. Williams as first vice chair, Barbara H. Mulkey as second vice chair and Steve F. Warren as secretary.

The board is comprised of 13 members – eight elected by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors; four appointed by the governor; and one ex officio member, student body president Jim Ceresnak, a political science major.

The new slate of officers:

• S. Lawrence Davenport, of Pactolus, N.C., is president of J.P. Davenport and Son, Inc. He received his bachelor's degree in agronomy from NC State in 1965.

• Cassius S. Williams, of Greenville, N.C., is an agent of State Farm Insurance Companies. He received his bachelor's degree in animal science from NC State in 1969.

• Barbara H. Mulkey, of Raleigh, N.C., is chairman and founder of Mulkey Engineers & Consultants. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering from NC State.

• Steve Warren of Greensboro, N.C., is managing partner of the Gateway Management Group. He received his bachelor's degree in textile technology from NC State in 1968 and his MBA from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1973.

In its first action, the board appointed an ad hoc committee to review university policies and procedures in the aftermath of the resignation of Chancellor James Oblinger, who stepped down June 8. He was replaced by Dr. Jim Woodward, who is serving as chancellor on an interim basis.

"This is not an attempt to find fault or blame anyone but simply a chance to discuss and advise Chancellor Woodward on our policies and procedures in an effort to pinpoint where they failed," said Davenport.

The committee is chaired by Williams and includes trustees Gayle Lanier, James Owens, Ben Jenkins and Norris Tolson.

Media Requests Compensation and Leave Data

NC State has responded to two News & Observer requests for information regarding compensation for employees. The requests were made to General Administration and to all UNC universities; NC State provided its responses on July 15.

The first request was for all compensation, including retreat packages, for deans and vice chancellors and above. The second was for all salary and leave-related information on every active NC State employee, including accrued annual leave, sick leave, comp time and bonus leave. Overtime paid from July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009, also was included.

The state attorney general has ruled that the information is not personnel data that is protected by state or federal statute and must be released.

New Brand Book Available

On July 1, the university rolled out the new North Carolina State University Brand Book. The book contains standards, guidelines and templates that individuals across campus can use to present the university brand correctly in any form of communication, whether it occurs in print, online or in PowerPoint presentations. The standards established in the NC State Brand Book were developed with the broad involvement of the university community and were created to help bring consistency to the way we all communicate about NC State.

The expectation is not to adjust communications already produced. However, it is expected that during the next 18 months, everyone will work to comply with the standards set forth in the brand book, and to begin that process now with any new work.

Please visit http://www.ncsu.edu/brand to download a copy of the book and to find other resources such as PowerPoint templates and design examples. 

Mehlenbacher Elected Chair of SIGDOC

Dr. Brad Mehlenbacher, associate professor of distance learning, has been elected chair of the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Design of Communication.

This is Mehlenbacher's third term as elected chair for the group, known as SIGDOC, which has elected only one previous chair to more than three consecutive terms. Members include technical communication professionals, software engineers, educators, researchers, Web designers, system developers, computer scientists, information technology professionals, usability specialists and managers responsible for creating technical materials, online information systems, Web sites and user interfaces.

Design Faculty Serve on State Boards

Gov. Beverly Perdue appointed two faculty members from the College of Design to state boards.

Dr. Gene Bressler, department head, serves on the North Carolina Board of Landscape Architecture. Sean Vance, head of the Center for Universal Design and an adjunct architecture faculty member, was appointed to the North Carolina Board of Architecture.

Both began their terms July 1.

NC State To Use Moodle for Online Classes

NC State plans to move its online classes to software built on Moodle, a free, open-source learning management system.

The change comes after a two-year evaluation process that involved a one-year pilot of Moodle, said Dr. Thomas K. Miller III, vice provost of Distance Technology and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA).

NC State will transition from the two current learning management systems, Blackboard Vista and WolfWare, to a rewritten version of WolfWare based on Moodle.

Miller said the move to open source software is a strategic decision. “In 2006, the UNC President Erskine Bowles commissioned the President’s Advisory Committee on Efficiency and Effectiveness, which asked the campuses to consider open source learning management systems for university needs. Considering our infrastructure and resources, our campus decided that Moodle was a promising fit.”

Faculty will be able to use Moodle for classes this fall as part of the continuing pilot. DELTA’s faculty development and support team will provide workshops on migrating courses to Moodle. For more information, contact Miller at 919-513-5006 or tkm@ncsu.edu.

Moodle:
http://www.moodle.org

Office of Sustainability Wins Commuter Award

NC State’s Office of Sustainability won a GoTriangle Commute Challenge Award for its outreach during the six-week Smart Commute Challenge.

Participants who work for more than 100 employers in the Triangle pledged to telecommute, carpool, take the bus, bike or walk to work between April 15 and May 30. Overall, their efforts saved an estimated 77,321 gallons of gas and kept 773 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

David Dean, outreach coordinator, Lindsay Batchelor, program coordinator, and Mande Swisher, student intern, accepted the award.

“We will continue to work hard at reducing NC State University’s greenhouse gas emissions through programs such as this but need the help of everyone on campus and our community partners to accomplish our goals,” Dean said.

Professor Named Tar Heel of Week

Dr. Will Hooker, professor in the Department of Horticultural Science, was named the Raleigh News & Observer’s Tar Heel of the Week for “30 years of teaching landscape horticulture and pushing environmental causes for the university.”

His hands-on approach includes having students build bamboo structures in front of the horticulture building and create sculptures using the muck out of Jordan Lake. In addition, Hooker has been involved in neighborhood festivals, a tour of local chicken coops and efforts to convert the grounds at Dorothea Dix hospital to a city park.

His Green Genes Go Way Back:
http://www.newsobserver.com/166/story/1595523.html

In Memoriam

NC State alumna Jean Marie Wolff-Rossi of Louisburg, a leader in advocating for people with disabilities, died July 3.

As a student at NC State, she formed the Student Organization for Disability Awareness and served as its president. She first worked with the North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities in 1994 during a six-month internship her senior year. As a campus activist, she supported fellow students in advocating for the rights mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and becoming full participants in student life.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in social work, she worked as an accountant and bookkeeper for the family business. She represented North Carolina in a symposium for young disability leadership in Washington, D.C. In 2001, she was appointed to the NC Council on Developmental Disabilities, where she was elected vice chair and served on the systems change and finance committees. She was instrumental in helping fund and develop initiatives such as the Participant Involvement Fund, which she later managed, and NC Disability Action Network (NC DAN). She supported the Association of Self-Advocates of North Carolina and was appointed to the Statewide Independent Living Council (SILC).

Jeannie is survived by her husband, Paul Rossi; her mother, Phyllis Wolff; her father, Peter H. Wolff; and three sisters, Bonnie, Kimberly and Merisa.