Around Campus: Week of March 26, 2001

NAE Member and Emeritus Professor Philip A. Thompson Dies
Philip A. Thompson, Rensselaer emeritus professor of mechanical engineering, aeronautical engineering and mechanics, died on Friday, March 23, 2001. He was a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering. Thompson served as assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Rensselaer from 1960-1963, then served as associate professor from 1974 until his retirement in 1993.

The funeral will be on Tuesday, March 27, 2001 at 8:35 a.m. from the Daniel D. Purcell Funeral Home, 510 Pawling Avenue, Troy (corner of Parkview Court) and at 9:30 a.m. at the RPI Chapel and Cultural Center, Burdett Avenue, Troy. Interment will be in Albany Rural Cemetery, Rt. 378, Menands.

Donations in Dr. Thompson's memory may be made to Caregivers of
Catholic Charities, 44 North Main Avenue, Albany, NY 12203 or to the Alzheimer's Association, 85 Watervliet Avenue, Albany, NY 12206.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
The New York Center for Studies on the Origins of Life will sponsor a free public lecture on the search for extraterrestrial life by Jill C. Tarter, an astronomer and head of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Management Group at the SETI Institute.

Tarter will speak on Thursday, March 29, at 7:30 p.m., at the Holiday Inn Turf, 205 Wolf Road, Albany. Her lecture is titled "SETI 2020: A Roadmap for Future SETI Observing Projects."

Organized more than 40 years ago, SETI is a non-profit corporation that serves as an institutional home for research and educational projects related to the study of life in the universe. SETI maintains a battery of radio telescopes around the globe.

The New York Center for Studies of the Origins of Life is a NASA sponsored center composed of faculty members in astrophysics, biology, chemistry, and earth sciences from Rensselaer and the University at Albany. 3/26/01

The awards recognize achievement in fiction, drama, poetry, essay, and electronic media. The reading is free and open to the public.

Since 1941, the McKinney Contest has been administered and judged by the faculty of the Department of Language, Literature, and Communication. Samuel P. McKinney, an 1884 graduate of Rensselaer, endowed the contest as a memorial to his wife, Mary A. Earl McKinney. This year, LL&C has joined with the New York State Writers Institute in a partnership that will continue to bring top writers to future McKinney events. 3/26/01

Grants Still Available for Troy Home Ownership
Grant applications for buying and rehabilitating homes in the city of Troy are still available through the Troy Architectural Program (TAP). April 6 is the deadline for submitting applications.

Rehabilitation grants of $10,000 each and $2,000 purchase assistance grants are available to assist moderate- to low- income people purchase and rehabilitate homes in downtown Troy.

Called the TAP Homes Program, the grant project is an ongoing effort by TAP to strengthen neighborhoods throughout Troy. TAP, a non-profit community architectural design center in existence since 1969, was conceived by students and faculty at Rensselaer's School of Architecture and has been saving buildings in Troy for more than 30 years.For more information, contact Garrett Hamlin at 274-3050 ext. 17. 3/26/01

Support Staff Day
The annual Support Staff Day event will be held Wednesday, April 25, 2001, for nonexempt secretarial and clerical staff. Invitations for these staff members will be issued in April to supervisors for distribution. The event will include a luncheon at the Russell Sage Dining Hall followed by a brief program. For more information, contact Human Resources at ext. 2888. 3/26/01

Business Plan Competition Deadline Nears
The deadline for the sixth annual Open Business Plan Competition, hosted by the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship, is March 30.

The competition is open to faculty, staff, students, and the community at large.

All plans must be postmarked by March 30, 2001 and sent to:

Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship
Lally School of Management & Technology
2304 Pittsburgh Building
110 8th Street
Troy, New York 12180

First prize is $3,000 and an opportunity to pitch your plan to an audience of venture capital/angel investors. Second and third prizes are $2,000 and $1,000 respectively. The date for the finalist presentations is April 25. For more details, go to http://scte.mgmt.rpi.edu. 3/19/01

Call for Nominations: Trustees' Outstanding Teacher Award
Nominations are invited from the Rensselaer community for the Trustees' Outstanding Teacher Award. This award, which is given annually, recognizes outstanding accomplishments in classroom instruction and consists of a $5,000 honorarium.

The selection will be made based on evidence of sustained outstanding teaching as reflected by student evaluations from the last two years, peer evaluations, and letters of support from colleagues, alumni, and students.

Nominations will be reviewed by a selection committee and recommended to the president for approval. Please submit nominations by March 24 to G. P. "Bud" Peterson, provost. For more information, call ext. 6487. 3/12/01

Herta Leng Memorial Lecture Scheduled
Alan Fowler '51, a researcher at the IBM Watson Research Center, will deliver the fifth annual Herta Leng Memorial Lecture Wednesday, March 28, at 4 p.m. in 318 DCC. Fowler will speak about "The Synergy Between Physics and Engineering, A Personal View."

Fowler is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a fellow of the IEEE and the APS. His main research fields are semiconductor physics and semiconductor devices. Fowler received his bachelor's in physics in 1951 and a master's in 1952 from Rensselaer.

Refreshments will be served at 3:45 p.m. For more information, contact Kay Gagliardi at gaglik@rpi.edu.

The Herta Leng Memorial Lecture series was established in honor of Herta Leng, a professor of physics at Rensselaer from 1943 to 1968 who died in 1997 at the age of 94. In 1966, she became the first woman named a full professor at Rensselaer. 3/5/01

2001-2002 Campus Vehicle Registration
If you are a regular permanent employee of Rensselaer, you can take advantage of AutoRenew to renew your campus parking permit. If you choose AutoRenew you will no longer have to resubmit your parking application annually. Online registration is also available.

Watch your mailbox for more details, or visit the Parking Office Web site at www.rpi.edu/dept/parking. 3/5/01

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