Purdue Notebook

September 2, 2005

APPOINTMENTS AND PROMOTIONS

– Purdue's College of Technology has announced several appointments at its locations throughout the state. Brian Alenskis has been named director of the College of Technology at Anderson, Muncie and Richmond. Alenskis, a professor of mechanical engineering technology, succeeds John Eddy as director at Muncie and Anderson and continues his duties in Richmond.

– Robert Neth, an associate professor of mechanical engineering technology, has accepted the position of interim director of the College of Technology in Columbus. Neth succeeds Nancy Head, who is taking a one-year leave of absence before returning as a full-time faculty member at the Columbus location.

– John Eddy has been named special assistant to the associate dean for statewide technology and engagement in the College of Technology. Eddy, formerly interim director of the college's location in Anderson and Muncie, will focus on several aspects of statewide technology, including data analysis, student recruitment, industrial relations, marketing and special events.

– Jorge Mantica has been appointed director of development for the College of Agriculture. Mantica earned his undergraduate degree in agricultural economics from Purdue in 1989 and also from the Indiana Agricultural Leadership Institute in 2000. Mantica formerly worked as a regional manager for DuPont.

CAMPUS ACTIVITIES

– Stelamaris Coser, professor of literary studies at Federal University of Brazil, Espirito Santo, will present "Imagining Brazil in the Works of Ntozake Shange" at 4 p.m. Sept. 15 at the Black Cultural Center, Multipurpose Room 1. Ntozake Shange is a 21st century playwright, poet and educator from New York who is known for her play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf." Coser is author of "Bridging the Americas: the Literature of Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison and Gayl Jones." The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the departments of English and foreign languages and literatures, and the African-American Studies, Women's Studies, Comparative Literature and American Studies programs.

FACULTY AND STAFF HONORS

– "DesignIntelligence: The Almanac of Architecture and Design," ranked Purdue's interior design program 24th in the nation in the publication's sixth annual rankings. Rosemary Kilmer, chair of the interior design area, said the award was based on the number of design firms and practitioners hiring Purdue graduates and the program's technology, studio and library resources. Interior design is housed in the Division of Art and Design in the Patti and Rusty Rueff Department of Visual and Performing Arts. Nearly 200 students major in Purdue's interior design program, which received the full six-year Foundation of Interior Design Education Research accreditation last spring. The rankings do not include visual communications or industrial design programs.

– Cody Sipe, director of the A.H. Ismail Center for Health, Exercise and Nutrition, received the Program Director of the Year Award from the IDEA Health and Fitness Association at its annual meeting in July. IDEA has more than 19,000 members in more than 80 countries. The award recognizes an IDEA member who is a practicing industry professional and designates the winner as an IDEA spokesperson on issues relating to fitness programming. Sipe also will be profiled in the October issue of the IDEA Fitness Journal. Sipe, who manages Purdue's 750-member center, has created an assessment program that provides all new members with an in-depth health and fitness profile. He also is co-founder and president of the Coalition for Living Well After 50, which has brought more than 50 community organizations together to increase the number of older adults who are physically active. In addition, he led an initiative to promote walking and fitness to the 17,000 members of the Indiana Extension Homemaker's Association. The A.H. Ismail Center opened in 1999 and is operated by the Department of Health and Kinesiology in the College of Liberal Arts.

– Assistant professor Elizabeth Hoffmann's paper, "Dispute Resolution in Cooperative and Hierarchical Worksites," was recently awarded one of five best paper distinctions by the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA). This paper, which discusses how the structure and ideology of worker cooperatives can affect workplace dispute resolution, will be featured in a best papers panel at the January meeting in Boston. Hoffmann, a sociologist who studies workplace and dispute resolution strategies, also was invited to present her work at the London School of Economic and Political Science earlier this year. Her next project, funded by a Clifford Kinley Trust grant, will focus on workplace dispute resolution in the health-care industry.

ALUMNI HONORS

– Rusty Rueff was recently given an alumni achievement award at the Mortar Board National College Senior Honor Society conference in Columbus, Ohio. The awards are presented to alumni who best exemplify the Mortar Board ideals and a quest for excellence in scholarship, leadership and service. Rueff earned a bachelor's degree in radio and television in 1984 and a master's degree in counseling in 1986 from Purdue.

STUDENT HONORS

– Anthony Ola, who graduated from Purdue this year with a bachelor's degree in industrial management, and Eric Harness, who works in Purdue's biology department and is pursuing a master's degree in genetics, traveled to Camp Shelby, Miss., this summer to help train more than 3,000 National Guard members for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Ola and Harness taught a course known as Close Quarter Combat, which shows participants how to handle a life-or-death situation when firearms aren't functioning. Ola and Harness were selected as trainers because of their teaching experience in a martial art known as Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu, which is taught through the Purdue student organization Yamaneko Shibu.

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