CAMPUS CURRENT

College News

Longtime Supporters "Inspired" to Give HMC's Largest Gift

Trustee R. Michael “Mike” Shanahan and his wife Mary pledged a $25 million gift to the college, the largest gift in its 53-year history.

The first portion ($12.5 million) of the five-year, $25-million pledge was given to the college in October. The funds are unrestricted and will be used to move forward the college’s strategic plan, “HMC 2020: Envisioning the Future,” adopted in 2006.

“The Shanahans’ leadership has always been exemplary, but this gift is a real testament to their commitment to our college and its mission,” said President Maria Klawe. “During these challenging economic times, we’re very fortunate to have supporters with their vision be willing to step up and make such a bold and generous statement about the value of the education we provide and its impact on our society. Our gratitude is profound.”

The Shanahans are longtime supporters of HMC and Mike has been a member of the board of trustees since 1992. He currently serves as chair of the board’s executive committee, was chair of the board from 1998 to 2006 and chaired its investment committee from 1995 to 1997.

“We are pleased to be able to support the important work being done at Harvey Mudd College,” said Mike. “Mary and I continue to be inspired by the creative ways the college’s administration, faculty and students work together in creating new knowledge that meets the changing needs of our society. We hope this gift inspires others to offer their support to an institution whose success translates so directly to the improvement of the quality of life for our nation, the world and its people.”

With the fulfillment of their $25 million pledge, the Shanahans will have given more than $35 million in support of the college. During their 16-year association with HMC, they have supported a variety of initiatives, including annual scholarships, the construction of the Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons, (the second building at HMC to earn a LEED-NC silver rating by the U.S. Green Building Council) and the creation of the following funds and initiatives: the R. Michael Shanahan Family Endowed Scholarship, Shanahan Endowed Dean of Faculty Chair, Shanahan Endowed Student-Directed Projects Fund and other special projects.

At the college’s commencement ceremonies in 2006, Mike Shanahan was awarded the Sprague Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service. The HMC Alumni Association recognized his service to alumni with the Order of the Wart in 2004.

Mike Shanahan is chairman emeritus of Capital Research and Management Company, which serves as the adviser to The American Funds. He is also chairman of the executive committee of The Capital Group Companies, Inc. Additionally, he is vice chairman and a director of The Investment Company of America; vice chairman and a director of AMCAP Fund; and a director of American Funds Distributors and Capital Strategy Research. He is a portfolio counselor for several mutual funds within the American Funds family.

Fletcher Jones Foundation, $750,000 for multi-phase, four-year program to improve information technology infrastructure. Will fund two staff positions—educational technology and scientific computing

John Stauffer Charitable Trust, $500,000 matching challenge grant to establish an endowed fund for student research in chemistry. When fully funded, the John Stauffer Fund for the HMC Summer Research Program in Chemistry would total $1 million and provide ongoing funding for student chemistry researchers.

Malcolm Lewis ’67 (trustee) and wife Cynthia Lewis, $500,000 pledge to establish the Patton and Claire Lewis Fellowship in Engineering Professional Practice, honoring Malcolm’s late parents. The fourth such program in the HMC Department of Engineering. Will match students and faculty with practicing professional engineers.

The Jenzabar Foundation, $5,000. One of seven 2008 Student Leadership Awards to joint service club Engineers for a Sustainable World and Mudders Organizing for Sustainability Solutions (ESW/MOSS). Recognized for its water quality and solar power project in Kenya, its sustainable
agriculture project in Guinea and its commitment to increasing awareness of environmental issues on the HMC campus.

Land Purchase Sets Stage for Vital Classroom Facility
“In order to fulfill the need for a new state-of-the-art classroom building, HMC has purchased 11.46 acres of land located northeast of the intersection of Foothill Boulevard and College Avenue. In early December, the Claremont University Center (CUC) Board of Overseers, the CUC governing body, recognized HMC as an approved “entity” for transfer of the property, which was owned by Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences (KGI). Escrow closed on Jan. 5.

HMC and Claremont Graduate University have signed a memorandum of understanding that will allow CGU to purchase one-half of the property after the land is subdivided.

The college proposes to use the new land to develop an environmentally sensitive “green” parking area in the southern-most strip of the property adjacent Foothill Boulevard. The parking is needed to support a new state-of-the-art classroom building that will replace Thomas-Garrett Hall on the existing 33-acre campus. The City of Claremont requires that parking facilities be located within 800 feet of new construction. The proximity of the planned construction at HMC to the new property will meet this requirement.

Below- and above-grade multi-level parking has been considered, but is considerably more costly. Based on projects recently completed or planned in the local area and after discussions with consultants who estimate the costs of parking projects, the costs for building parking facilities are estimated as follows: Surface parking is approximately $4,000 per space; multi-level parking structures are from $32,000 (multi-level, above grade) to $45,000 (multi-level, below grade) per space. These costs are based on the current costs of materials and labor.

Being considered for the parking area are state-of-the-art solar (photovoltaic) shades that generate electricity, plug-ins for the next generation of electric vehicles, and bioswales to capture potentially hazardous run-off and mitigate its impacton the environment and the adjacent Robert J. Bernard Biological Field Station (BFS). The 45-acre BFS, an academic resource of Claremont University Consortium, was established during the 1970s and is used for Claremont Colleges classes in biology, botany, ecology, environmental science, art, geology, and astronomy as well as for faculty and student research. It is flanked by the 11.46 acres now owned by HMC and by 30 acres owned by CUC. Research activities currently occur on the entire 86 acres.

HMC administrators held a series of meetings to discuss plans for the property with HMC faculty, students and staff; The Claremont Colleges faculty who conduct research at the BFS; and the local community. Opponents of the HMC purchase have argued for strict preservation of the land.

President Maria Klawe said of the purchase, “We understand and respect the concern of faculty and students that development of the KGI property reduces the area currently available for biology research and education, and that edge effects from development might impact the ecology of the approximately 45 acres designated as a biology field station.”

Klawe said, “It is our intention that the development we plan for the KGI property will have a minimal effect on the adjacent area designated as a field station. Moreover, by dedicating some of the KGI property for biology research and education, our goal is to support and promote the use of the adjacent area as a valuable academic resource.”

HMC proposes to dedicate to biological research in perpetuity a portion of the KGI property to supplement the adjacent BFS, with the possible addition of facilities to support it. Being considered are a classroom and storage, office and restroom facilities.

Curriculum Revised: Flexibility Added, Rigor Remains
Increased opportunities for electives, a top request of students in recent years, is a key component of the revised HMC Core curriculum approved in fall.

Modifications to the curriculum will take effect with the incoming class of fall 2009. The new Core meets the strategic goals by creating interdisciplinary opportunities for all students; by allowing students to explore a wide range of interests, including highly relevant proposed electives (e.g., nanotechnology, energy and the environment, and wireless communications); and giving students the opportunity for foreign language study within the first year, a skill that will be increasingly vital due to the accelerated globalization of science and engineering. The introduction of a true interdisciplinary lab elective gives students the opportunity to explore fields like biochemistry, biomechanics and digital electronics.

The new curriculum still retains its place as the most extensive core and humanities curriculum among HMC’s peer institutions, and students continue to take a larger course load (more than five courses per term) than students at peer institutions.

Some features of the new curriculum plan include:

• Increased opportunities for electives, including one in the first semester and at least three electives for all majors (currently there is no elective in the first semester and only one elective slot in all four years of the engineering major)
• Improvement in the ability of students to take foreign languages (currently, a lack of elective slots and lab scheduling prohibit language study in the first year)
• A new interdisciplinary “choice” lab in the third semester of the core, in addition to a physics and chemistry lab in the first year, to give students a choice between new labs that will interface between disciplines
• A new writing half-course in the first semester, with focused instruction on writing, taught by faculty from all departments
• Fixed placement of core biology in the second semester
• Some reduction of core requirements in math, chemistry, physics, and the humanities to increase space for electives
• No Integrative Experience requirement
• No zero-unit required courses
• The Core totals 37.5 units (previously 50 units)

The Strategic Vision Curriculum Committee (SVCC), 10 faculty members appointed in January 2007, was charged with reviewing the entirety of the HMC curriculum in regard to the college’s strategic goals.

The SVCC examined the curricula at 20 peer institutions, considered data on the strong interest of HMC students in foreign language study, studied past core curriculum revisions as well as the changing preparation of students, and reflected on the HMC mission statement as well as the goals of the strategic vision. It became apparent that the ability of students to take electives would play a fundamental role in achieving these goals.

The committee developed a proposal to modify core curriculum requirements in a way that would provide more flexibility and electivity for students, without compromising Mudd’s signature academic rigor. The proposal evolved in consultation with many faculty and students, and was presented to the full faculty in October. The proposal was approved by the faculty with more than 80 percent support.

“The faculty and I have an unwavering commitment to the high academic standards that make Harvey Mudd one of the top undergraduate science and engineering colleges in the world,” said Robert Cave, vice president for academic affairs and dean. “We are enthusiastic about the recent progress made toward achieving the college’s strategic goals, and believe that these changes will allow HMC to maintain a leadership role in undergraduate STEM education, attract the most talented students, and provide the best possible education for future generations of HMC students.”

Getting Prepared
HMC was one of many institutions that participated in the Great Southern California ShakeOut, the largest earthquake preparedness activity in U.S. history. Events planned on campus during October and November by Emergency Preparedness and Safety Coordinator Melonee Cruse included home preparedness seminars, information about local government strategies, and plans for K-12 and college campuses. The Claremont Colleges tested its Mass Notification (Connect-ED) System Nov. 13 by contacting community members via office phone, cell phone or e-mail. All were encouraged to drop, cover and hold in place for at least 60 seconds. In Platt Campus Center, students hosted the Sichuan 5/12 Earthquake Photo Exhibition, supported by the HMC 2020 Strategic Vision Fund and The Claremont Colleges. The images showed the impact of the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China. “We hope that through the photo exhibition, more people are aware of the detrimental effect of an earthquake and get prepared for potential disasters,” said organizer Benyue Liu ’10.

Faculty News

APS Prize Awarded to Eckert

“Inspirational guidance and encouragement of undergraduate students” was a key reason Professor of Physics James Eckert was awarded the American Physical Society’s (APS) 2009 Prize to a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution.

The award citation states, “For the significant contributions he has made to the understanding of the complex exchange biasing mechanism crucial to spin-valve sensors used in the read-write heads of hard disks and for his skilled and enthusiastic inclusion of undergraduates in physics research.”

Eckert’s selection was enthusiastically supported by his former students, who were notified of his candidacy by his colleague and research associate, Professor of Physics Patti Sparks, who nominated him.

In her nomination of Eckert, Sparks wrote: “In his 28 years at Harvey Mudd College, he has engaged over 70 students in research. In the past 10 years he has created a thriving research program in magnetism and magnetic materials, working with 25 students on research projects that span applied work leading to product development and to the physics of spin valves in hard disk read heads. He has published 17 peer reviewed articles, all with student coauthors. He has established a laboratory with over $2 million worth of equipment. His students have access to cryo equipment, atomic and magnetic force microscopes, thin film deposition systems and to magnetometry/transport characterization systems. Professor Eckert has worked with some of the best students in the country, including two Apker winners, Nathaniel Stern (2003) and Stephanie Moyerman (2006), and one finalist, Joseph Checkelsky (2004).

Eckert says he stays in touch with many of them and follows the progress of their careers and personal lives. “Many of my best friends are my former students,” he said. “I have a lot of respect for their work and they are among the greatest people I’ve ever met.”

Moyerman, who is currently doing graduate work at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), said, “By far, the most influential person in my life at Harvey Mudd was Professor Eckert. He advised me in my path as a physicist, always treating me as an equal instead of a student. More importantly, however, Professor Eckert always encouraged my lab mates and I to pursue our academic and personal endeavors regardless of circumstance. He taught me that nothing is unattainable. Without him, I would certainly not be where I am today.”

At UCSD, Moyerman is working alongside Eric Fullerton ’84, Endowed Chair Professor at the Center for Magnetic Recording Research (CMRR) and professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. Of Eckert, he said, “(Jim) is a first-rate experimental condensed matter physicist and, more than anyone I know, embodies the prize’s description of ‘providing inspirational guidance and encouragement of undergraduate students participating in this research.’”

Eckert has taught at HMC for 30 years. In addition to his research and teaching in physics, Eckert collaborates with HMC Professor of Literature Jeff Groves on the course Dickens, Hardy and the Victorian Age, a “topographical literary criticism” that includes two weeks in England, where students visit the cities, towns and countryside about which the renowned authors wrote.

Silver Star Surprise

“It was one of the greatest shocks I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

After 63 years, Carl Baumgaertner, clinical professor of engineering, was presented with the Silver Star—the third highest military decoration awarded for gallantry in action—at a Veteran’s Day celebration Nov. 11 at St. Thomas Academy, the military high school he attended in St. Paul, Minn. He was expecting to receive an award for his contributions to the school.

“I went to St. Paul to receive the first annual Flemming Award from St. Thomas Academy,” he said. “When that grand ceremony was over, they called me back on stage ‘to correct a 63-year-old error.’ I couldn’t believe what happened next. It was very moving.”

Mike DePuglio, a retired lieutenant colonel who oversees the school’s military program as the commandant of cadets, was instrumental in securing the Silver Star that Baumgaertner was awarded in 1945, but never received. It was Baumgaertner’s son, Jim, however, who initiated the search several years prior.

Jim was in the process of retracing his father’s World War II service route for a trip he planned to take with his own son when he learned that a Silver Star had been awarded. Unfortunately, Baumgaertner could not find the medal in his army footlocker.

“Jim said, ‘You’ve got to find it, dad.’ I just figured I had lost it or never actually got it,” explained Baumgaertner, who was also awarded three Bronze Stars Medals for bravery and meritorious service during the war. “Nobody paid much attention to decoration. After the war, the name of the game was getting on with your life. You wanted to forget what you had just been through.”

Upon writing a local congressman about the matter, Baumgaertner learned that the records that could have verified whether the medal had been awarded or not had burned in a fire. “So, you can see how receiving this medal was such a shock,” he said.

In January 1943, six months out of military high school, where he graduated as a United States Army second lieutenant, Baumgaertner was called to active duty, following the attack on Pearl Harbor. There, he was assigned a platoon of 47 men, which included a high school history professor who had taught Baumgaertner the previous year.

“It was a time of great unity where everyone was willing to serve,” he said. “September 11 was the only time since World War II where I’ve seen the country come together like that.”

At the young age of 20, Baumgaertner was promoted to first lieutenant.

“Many of the first lieutenants had died, since the average life of an infantry lieutenant in combat was 30 days,” he explained. “I was assigned the job of company commander, leading an infantry company of 187 infantry soldiers and three lieutenant officers.”

Under the command of General George Patton, Baumgaertner led his troops onto Utah Beach—one of the five beaches designated for the D-Day landings in June 1944—and through France and Germany, where they crossed the Saar River at high-flood stage and scaled a cement wall in heavy fog in an unexpected attack on the Germans.

“Patton’s unique and unconventional battle style really saved us,” said Baumgaertner, whose first language of German came in handy when interrogating prisoners or tricking German enemies into believing he was one of them. “He signed the order for us to cross the Saar River and attack, knowing that nobody in their right mind would ever do such a thing without previous reconnaissance. He knew that the Germans would never be expecting us. And because of that we had fewer casualties.”

Upon returning from the war in January 1946, Baumgaertner headed back to college. In 1948, he graduated from St. Thomas College with degrees in mathematics and physics, then attended University of Minnesota for studies toward a master’s degree in electrical engineering.
His first job was with Honeywell, where he spent 34 years. During this time, he became an HMC Clinic sponsor. After retiring from Honeywell, he began work at HMC and now works part-time advising Clinic teams and teaching an electronics class.

“I absolutely love the students and the college,” said Baumgaertner. “The most rewarding thing I’ve done has been here at Mudd because I’m in a position to help others.”

FACULTY ACTIVITIES

Journals feature Vosburg’s Work
The work of David Vosburg, assistant professor of chemistry, appeared in two journals during fall.

Vosburg’s paper published in the journal Nature detailed the complexity of protein-protein interactions and their role in antibiotic production. Knowledge about such protein dynamics could one day open avenues for the design of new therapeutic compounds.

Vosburg began this research in 2002 as a postdoctoral student, with colleagues at Harvard Medical School. “If we know how protein interactions work, we can better engineer proteins to make novel drugs and improve existing antibiotics.”

Using a technique known as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), the research team focused on a large, multifunctional family of bacterial enzymes that produce potent antibiotics, including penicillin and vancomycin, which microbes use against each other. The NMR technique that the team utilized for the study provided a more intricate picture of protein dynamics than the more commonly used technique of X-ray crystallography.

Featured in the November issue of the Journal of Chemical Education, was Vosburg’s student-directed approach to teaching synthetic organic chemistry. In teams, the students enrolled in the Chem 171: Advanced Organic Chemistry: Synthesis course first examine pairs of syntheses of related or identical molecules to appreciate synthetic strategy and then write short creative papers to compare the synthetic routes. The student teams present key elements of each synthesis to the class. The course culminates in oral and written proposals—crafted as one would write a grant proposal--for novel syntheses of student-selected molecules. One student remarked, “This was by far the coolest course I’ve taken.”

Mashek Brings Lessons to Life
Debra Mashek, assistant professor of psychology, was featured in the December issue of the American Psychological Association’s magazine Monitor on Psychology. The story, titled “Bringing Lessons to Life,” is about psychology professors who integrate their teaching of psychology with activities that contribute to society. Mashek’s work with her students in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is described as a prime example of this kind of teaching.

Percussion Discussion
Bill Alves, associate professor of music, was interviewed in November on local radio station KPFK’s Global Village program and played excerpts from his new CD “Imbal-imbalan: New Music for Gamelan.”

Two Books and a Workshop
Fletcher Jones Professor of Engineering Design Clive Dym, is co-author of two recently published books. He wrote “Engineering Design: A Project-Based Introduction, 3rd edition,” with Patrick Little, and Elizabeth J. Orwin and R. Erik Spjut, (John Wiley, New York). A Korean translation of this book (second edition) was also published. The second book “Introduction to Engineering Mechanics: A Continuum Approach” (CRC Press) was co-authored with Jenn Stroud Rossmann. Dym is organizer of the upcoming seventh Mudd Design Workshop, “Sustaining Sustainable Design,” to be held on campus May 28-30.

Cost and Location Factors Published
Don Remer, professor of engineering, and three alumni coauthors published a refereed paper that recently appeared in the International Journal of Production Economics. The three co-authors are Steve Lin ’06, Nancy Yu ’07 and Karen Hsin ’06. The paper “An update on cost and scale-up factors, international inflation indexes and location factors” discusses cost and location factors used in the U.S. and internationally. The current study includes cost and location factors in the U.S. and abroad, and cost scale-up factors for a wide variety of equipment, plants and processes from air pollution abatement to waste-to-energy facilities to commercial airplanes.

Differential Equations Celebrated
Emeritus mathematics Professors Robert Borrelli and Courtney Coleman, right, authors of the differential equations text used at HMC, discussed “40 years of Differential Equations at the Claremont Colleges” in October. Their insightful and often humorous account traced the evolution of differential equations in the HMC mathematics curriculum and cited the many milestones along the way. Their talk served as the kick-off lecture for the HMC Annual Mathematics Conference, organized by mathematics Professor Alfonso Castro. The five talks of Saturday, Oct. 25, were given by world-class experts in nonlinear functional analysis.

Two-three-chachacha
Mudders swept the Dancing with the Claremont Stars competition that took place in December. Three of the four winners were from HMC, including Lisette de Pillis, professor of mathematics, who won first-place in the Cha-Cha competition with her partner Ian Jimenez ’11. Waltz first place winners were Margaret Waller, professor of French at Pomona College and Fred Johnson ’10. Both students are members of The Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance team.

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ACE Fellow to Spend Spring at HMC
Jacqueline El-Sayed will be on campus during spring as an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow. As an ACE Fellow, she will study administrative procedures and assist with the WASC reaccreditation work as she seeks to better understand the challenges facing higher education. El-Sayed is director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, the Richard L. Terrell Professor of Excellence in Teaching, and professor of mechanical engineering at Kettering University, where she has been on the faculty since 1996. She is part of the Kettering Industrial Ecology Team which developed the course modules in sustainable manufacturing.

College Advancement Promotes, Adds Staff

Danyel Barnard Reed was promoted to associate director, advancement initiatives, she was previously associate director of corporate and foundation relations. Barnard Reed will work closely with Maya Chalich, senior director for college advancement, to oversee multiple initiatives focused on campaign planning and preparedness, major gift/corporate/foundation fundraising, the President’s Scholars Program, and strategic communications efforts and events.

Jessica Kath joined the advancement team as associate director of advancement research. She worked previously as prospect research manager at Pitzer College. Brad Scott, a former student calling center supervisor at Kent State University, is assistant director of the annual fund–phonathon and will oversee the senior gift program as well.

Cyberbattle Victory

“On November 17, 2008, Harvey Mudd was victorious with 517 players on 126 territories at Turn 43 under the leadership of Cdr. Emily Fujimoto ’11, Cdr. Christopher DeBoever ’10, Cdr. Nathan Jones ’10, and Cdr. Tyler Wolf ’09.”

This announcement on gocrosscampus.com’s website brought cheers from HMC students, alumni and professors who took part in Tech Tournament ’08, an online strategy game that pitted HMC against eight other technical schools (3,675 players) in the U.S. and Mexico. The team-based social game required players “to conquer the entire map with the rest of your team, gaining more territories than your opponents and expelling your rivals from the playing field.”

HMC beat out Caltech, Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, New Jersey’s Science & Technology University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Stevens Institute of Technology, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey, and took home the grand prize of two BUGbundles—hardware devices with an LCD screen, accelerometer, 2-megapixel camera and GPS capabilities—donated by the competition sponsor.

For 42 straight days, players logged in and followed their commanders’ orders to either defend their territory, move to other areas or attack opponents. Commanders were elected to write out battle plans, and players could vote out people who they suspected of spying.
“The commanders, especially Tyler (Wolf), showed great creativity and cunning in crafting a winning strategy,” said Elizabeth “Z” Sweedyk, associate professor of computer science, who participated in the game. “But it would have all been for naught without the support of so many of our students.”

“HMC did a great job of coming together over this game,” added Wolf. “We got 69 percent of the school to participate, as well as a few alumni and professors.”

The team excelled at coordination, analysis and reconnaissance. Several students wrote computer programs to simulate battles, enabling the commanders to make better decisions. Other students painstakingly recorded data each day and performed statistical analysis on them.

“From this we were able to track the participation levels for each team in the game, and observe trends,” explained Wolf, a computer science major. “For instance, we observed that separating one of a team’s territory away from the rest of their empire resulted in a drastic reduction in participation.

Presumably, the players who were cut off from their team became demoralized and stopped playing. This observation informed our strategizing, and we were able to use the same tactic to great success many more times.”

Students’ Visions Funded
Each semester, many creative proposals are submitted for President’s Strategic Vision Funds. The majority of fall HMC2020 Grants went to student projects that allow “innovation and leadership,” “excellence and diversity,” “development of the whole person,” and “contributions to society,”--all elements of HMC’s Strategic Vision.

• Catherine Bradshaw ’09 Funds for HIV/AIDS: Science, Society and Service group to host a series of events to raise awareness in the
  community about HIV and AIDS.
• Patrick Foley ’09 Set of CORE textbooks for library in Platt.
• Benyue Liu ’10 Chinese Students Association will raise awareness about global earthquakes and donate funds to victims of the Sichuan,
  China, earthquake.
• Bonny Guang ’12 PRISM will hand out free t-shirts that say “Gay? Fine by me” in order to promote discussion about LGBT rights. Additional funds would go toward a media library to increase the visibility of the gay community.
• Alex Randall ’10 and Alicyn Henkaus ’09 Funds for the second annual GoalFive conference focused on climate change engineering, which will feature speakers and a social networking dinner.
• Jonny Simkin ’10 Funds to help promote and grow the HMC Roller Hockey Club.
• Neal Pisenti ’11 Supplies for lessons, transportation and science olympics for the Science Bus, an organization where students provide
  weekly off-campus tutoring at local elementary schools.
• Jessica Wen ’10 and Becky Glick ’11 Society of Women Engineers, Women Engineers and Scientists of Tomorrow (WEST) Conference.
  
• Andrew-Macrae ’11, Trevor Ashley ’08 with Professors David Money Harris, John Molinder and Tony Bright, Funds will help students
  interested in robotics and will make more equipment available.
• Laura Poindexter ’11 Funds to enlarge and improve the ‘Mudd Garden’ located between South Dorm and Platt Campus Center, giving students the chance to garden on campus.

Complete list of awardees.

PRESENTATIONS & COMPETITIONS

Mathematics Students Spread Knowledge
Mathematics students are traveling the globe to present their research. During fall, HMC supported 11 students to attend conferences in Udine, Italy (Analysis and Numerics of Population Dynamics and Epidemics Models), Pomona, Calif. (So. Calif. Conference for Undergraduate Research), and Washington, D.C. (Joint Mathematics Meeting). Topics and the students who presented them are:

• Preferential HIV/AIDS Treatment Allocation Modeling in Resource Constrained Countries, Nadia Abuelezam ’09
• The Hydrodynamic Origin of Whale Footprints, Dmitri Skjorshammer ’11
• Classifying the simplices of the 4-dimensional cube, Helen Highberger ’10, Natalie Durgin ’09, Jacob Scott ’11
• Group Theoretic Algorithms for Fast Matrix Multiplication, Bob Chen ’10, Hendrik Orem ’09, Richard Bowen ’10, Martijn van Schaardenburg ’10
• Constructive Lower Bounds For Cyclic Van der Waerden Number, Jeffrey Burkert ’11
• The Minimum Semidefinite Rank of a Graph, Rachel Cranfill ’09

Less is More in Dorm Competition
With a 33 percent reduction in energy consumption during October, Atwood Dorm residents took first place in the October Energy Conservation Competition, earning a grand prize of $500.

The $300 second-place prize went to the residents of North Dorm, where energy consumption dropped by 22 percent; third-place ($200), went to Case Dorm, where residents reduced consumption by 20 percent. All prize money—provided by the Educational Legacy Fund—will go toward dorm activities chosen by the residents.

The contest challenged the residents of HMC’s eight dorms to conserve as much energy as possible through a variety of methods, including setting computers to sleep mode, washing clothes in cold water, using natural lighting and unplugging chargers when not in use.

Dorian Scrima ’11, North Dorm co-president and a member of ESW/MOSS, the student service and environmental club, said residents were committed to conservation. “Simple things like turning the lights off when not in use and turning A/Cs down a few degrees or even completely off were things that saved electricity and were visibly in place in different peoples’ rooms.”

Spaide Ranks High
Ted Spaide ’10 placed 15.5th out of 398 participants at the Virginia Tech Regional Math Competition held in November. HMC was one of 74 schools that took part in the contest involving 398 participants.

CHEERING SECTION
HMC Athletes in CMS Sports, Fall 2008

Men’s Cross Country: 1st at SCIAC Championships (2nd overall in SCIAC), 2nd at West Regionals, 30th at NCAA DIII Championships
Dillon Ayers ’11: All-West Region; 2nd Team All-SCIAC
Bryan Chow ’12: All-West Region; 1st Team All-SCIAC
Georgi Dinolov ’10: 2nd Team All-SCIAC
Florian Scheulen ’10: All-West Region; 1st Team All-SCIAC
Kramer Straube ’11: All-West Region; 1st Team All-SCIAC
Mike Van Antwerp ’09: All-West Region; 2nd Team All-SCIAC
Matthew Cummins ’11, Alex Kurtis ’10, Matt Kurtis ’10, Scott Ogilvie ’12, Matt Richman ’12, Kyle Stewart ’11

Women’s Cross Country: SCIAC Champions, West Region Champions, 20th at NCAA DIII Championships
Rachael Martin ’09: All-West Region
Kathleen Bennett ’12, Isabel Bush ’12, Sara Sholes ’09

Football: 4-5 overall, 3-3 (4th) SCIAC
Bryan Downs ’09, Michael McNeece ’10, Vikram Shivaji ’10

Men’s Soccer: 7-8-4 overall, 7-4-3 (t3rd) SCIAC
Kevin Festini ’09: 2nd Team All-SCIAC
Jake Feldman ’10, Chris Lowen ’12, Dylan Marriner ’12

Women’s Soccer: 12-9-2 overall, 7-5 (t3rd) SCIAC; SCIAC Tournament Champions, t9th NCAA DIII Championships
Kristen McAfee ’11

Men’s Water Polo: 10-22 overall, 5-5 (t5th) SCIAC
Perry Ellis ’11