Dorm named for Laura Jane Harper

In recognition of her long years of involvement in establishing quality programs for women at Tech, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors has named a new dormitory for the late Dean Emeritus Laura Jane Harper.

The soon-to-be constructed residence on West Campus Drive will be known as Harper hall as a tribute to Harper, who was dean from 1960 - 1980 of what was then called the College of Home Economics. She began her career at Tech in 1949 as an associate professor teaching foods and nutrition and maintained her ties to the university until her death in 1996.

Known for her feistiness and hard-driving personality, Harper was the first woman academic dean at Virginia Tech. She was a pioneering voice for equal-educational opportunities for all. She had joint responsibilities for the home-economics programs both at Tech and at Radford College, which was then the women's division of Tech, and she guided the dissolution of this arrangement so that women would have equal opportunities at both institutions.

Among her countless achievements, Harper was instrumental in recruiting the first male students and faculty members into the home-economics program, arranged for the first woman to be commissioned in the ROTC program at Tech, developed the first college and career guidance programs, and started one of the earliest study-abroad programs at the university.

"Laura Jane Harper was not only a role model for many women educators, but a scholar in her own right. She paved the way for so many women at Virginia Tech that one need not look far in any direction to find her impact on campus life," says university Provost and Senior Vice President Peggy Meszaros.

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Knox named Architecture and Urban Studies dean

University Distinguished Professor Paul Knox was appointed dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies after serving as interim dean for several months.

Knox, an internationally renowned geographer, has served the college as associate dean of academics since August 1993 and is the current director of the Ph.D. program in environmental design and planning and a professor in the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning.

A scholar in the interdisciplinary field of urbanism, Knox has written 12 books and authored over 100 academic publications. In addition, he serves on the editorial boards of the top 10 journals in his field. In 1988, he joined the ranks of a small group of "New Centurions," geography researchers whose work has been cited in certain recognized scientific journals 100 times or more during a five-year period.

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Blaze closes architecture annex

A large fire that broke out in the Architecture Annex building in the early morning of Dec. 16 destroyed the first floor, including a room where award-winning student designs were stored, and parts of the second and third floors.

No one was injured, although students were studying for finals in the building at the time. The fire was caused by a faulty electrical phone switch. Repairs will cost an estimated $800,000.

Faculty offices, classrooms, and computer labs for the departments of Urban Affairs and Planning and Landscape Architecture have been relocated. Campus officials expect repairs to be completed by May.

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Virginia Tech Magazine captures regional prize

Readers have been telling us they like our new look since the Virginia Tech Magazine was redesigned in December '96. Now judges of the regional competition held by CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) are echoing your opinions. Virginia Tech Magazine received the Award of Excellence in the CASE District III awards competition for magazine publishing improvement and was displayed at the CASE District III Conference in Florida in February.

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Graduates win engineering society's highest honors

Two recent mechanical engineering graduates, Fionna Murray '97 and Scott Wenger '97 received two of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)'s highest awards from among 23,000 individuals for their work as Virginia Tech students.

"For our student section, winning both of these awards is like winning the World Series and Super Bowl in the same year," said Charles Reinholtz, Virginia Tech mechanical engineering professor and faculty advisor of the Tech section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Murray, now an engineer with General Electric Aircraft Engines in Fairfield, Ohio, received the Charles T. Main Award for leadership, dedication, and outstanding service to ASME, the organization's highest individual distinction awarded to student members. Under Murray's leadership as membership chair, the Tech section grew to almost 500 members, becoming the largest student chapter in the U.S. Murray also planned and presented a series of leadership workshops for regional ASME student members.

Wenger, an engineer at Corning in Wilmington, N.C., won ASME's Old Guard Technical Presentation Award. During the national contest in Dallas, his presentation, "Test Drive an Autonomous Vehicle," placed first over top regional entries from 12 other universities.

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National conference held at Tech

Science and technology writers from such prestigious publications as the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Popular Science met at Virginia Tech campus in November to participate in the 1997 New Horizons in Science briefings.

New Horizons is organized by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW) and meets annually at the nation's best research schools. It is the only meeting held nationally that is designed to cover the complete spectrum of science and technology for journalists without advocating a particular cause or viewpoint.

Among the speakers invited by CASW were: Nobel Prize winning physicist James Cronin of Chicago; MIT's Steven Pinker, director of its Center for Cognitive Neuroscience; and six keynote presenters from Virginia Tech: William Velander of chemical engineering; Rick Claus and Ted Rappaport of electrical and computer engineering; Tracy Wilkins of the biotechnology center, and Harry Gibson of chemistry.

Lynn Nystrom, news director of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering organized the event.

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Virginia legislature honors Tech alumnus and professor

All 15 Virginia Tech alumni legislators convened on the Virginia Capital steps in February after the General Assembly honored Nobel physicist Robert Richardson and acclaimed Civil War historian Alumni Distinguished Professor James I. Robertson. Shown are: (first row) Del. James Shuler, House Speaker Tom Moss, Del. Michele McGuigg, James Robertson, Robert Richardson, Del. Joe Barlow, House Democratic Leader Dick Cranwell; (second row) Del. Joe May, Del. John Rollison, Del. Harry Parrish, Del. Bob Hull, Senate Finance Committee Co-Chair John Chichester, House Clerk Bruce Jamerson, Del. Frank Hargrove; (third row) Del. Robert Orrock Sr., Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen, House Republican Leader Vance Wilkins, Del. Johnny Joannov, Sen. John Watkins.

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Renardy named fellow of American Physical Society

Yuriko Renardy, professor of mathematics at Virginia Tech, has been named a Fellow of the American Physical Society "for her seminal contributions to the fluid dynamics of interfacial instabilities."

Renardy received the Career Advancement Award by the National Science Foundation in 1989. She has authored two books published by Springer Verlag of New York in 1993 and a third was published by the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 1996.

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Engineers honored for contributions to quality of life

Virginia Tech electrical engineering professors Saifur Rahman and Theodore Rappaport have been elected Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for "important individual contributions . . . that have been reflected in an improved quality of life for society."

Rahman is director of the university's Center for Energy and the Global Environment and program director for the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Energy Processing Systems Program. One of Rahman's NSF projects involves developing a nationwide distribution system for electric power engineering education materials. He also is studying the impacts of electricity use on global climate change, with the goal of developing methods of reducing those impacts.

Rappaport founded the Mobile & Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG), one of the first two university research centers of this type in the world; he authored the first textbook on the subject; and he founded the first annual international symposium on wireless personal communication.

Currently, Rappaport and students at the MPRG are conducting radio propagation measurements in the new National Information Infrastructure (NII) radio band at 5.85 Ghz, which will allow wireless service providers to provide wireless local area networks, Internet to the home, and wide-band campus networks without using cable.

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Student advising programs honored

The Virginia Tech departments of mining and minerals engineering, animal and poultry sciences, and agricultural and applied economics were honored as University Exemplary Departments for 1997 for their effective approaches to student advising.

Career advising and placement by the Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering is so effective that 100 percent of its graduating seniors have been placed in mining engineering jobs for the last seven years. Department head Michael Karmis estimates that he and faculty members spent 15-20 percent of their time on career placement.

The Department of Animal and Poultry Science has experienced a 50 percent increase in undergraduate student enrollment in the past two years. Students are required to take a junior-level seminar designed to help them develop skills necessary for a job search.

The Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics has several innovative approaches to advising, which include group advising nights and alumni receptions at the homes of faculty members. During the past 15 years, most of the department's graduates obtained employment in their field within six months of graduation.

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Project aims to get girls into science

A team of Virginia Tech scientists is recruiting teachers and middle-school girls in five Southwest Virginia counties for an innovative program to increase the representation of females in the sciences.

"We want to help dispel the notion that boys and girls are not all starting on a level playing field when it comes to science and math education," says Ruth Alscher, associate professor of plant physiology and project director.

The project will establish collaborations with educators in Dickenson, Giles, Lee, Washington, and Wise counties. The counties are in an area of the state with the lowest total job growth; the highest loss in population; the highest unemployment; the lowest growth in median family income; and the highest number of children in poverty, according to a 1994 study.

The Science and Gender Equity Program of Western Virginia, or SAGE-VA, aims to establish a network of middle school teachers, administrators, and university scientists to review and revise science and mathematics activities in a way to stimulate the interest of girls.

Twenty teachers are to be brought into the program during the first year, with 30 more joining it during the second year. Similar numbers of girls will be included directly in the project, largely through participation in a summer camp at Virginia Tech. But, Alscher said, the project is expected to affect 1,000 more students and 200 more teachers through ripple effects.

The two-year, $160,000 project will be funded by the National Science Foundation and Virginia Tech.

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Four-week courses offered in May

Virginia Tech will offer an intensive four-week summer session, Maymester, beginning May 11 and ending June 5.

The 16 courses offered include two study-abroad experiences, an online science fiction course, advanced creative writing, curatorial issues in art, a graduate course in political theory, and many undergraduate courses. They allow student to work or travel the remaining eight weeks of summer.

Information about summer sessions is available on the web at http://www.summer.vt.edu or by calling (540) 321-9582.

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