Week 12!! I cannot believe spring smester has less than one month left.
However, this last month will be very difficult for me, because of two competitions in this month, I am a little behind of my classes. I need spend more time to catch up the class. I know some of you have the same situation with me. But if you think about how wonderful the summer is, you will be motive again.
This article may be an advertisement for my enterprise, but I really want to talk about this special group. From them, my academic skills get improved, and the most important thing is how to work like a team, even face the failure together.
The enterprise program I am related with is called FIRST Robotics Enterprise. This is a special program because we work with not only college students buy also high school students. Last weekend, as a mentor, I went down Grand Rapids with Houghton high school team to have west Michigan FIRST competition in Grand Valley State University. This was my first time to go to competition with a team. I can never get such unique experience from solving mechanics of materials problems.
I went to some science competition when I was in high school. My dad is a chemistry teacher in my high school and he always forced me to go to those so called Chemistry Olympia competition. All I did is sit in front of the desk and try to solve bunch crazy, unbelievable problems within 2 hours. I think “test” will be more properly for it. Comparing to this, the environment for this competition was totally different. When I walked into gym, where the competition was held, kids were walking around with different kinds of customs and having dozens of buttons attached. I can hear cheering sound from everywhere. As the judge said, that was a celebration instead of competition.
When I joined this group last year, all I expected was to improve my 3D modeling skill. I did do lots design stuff last fall and had a 50-page design report at the end of semester. I knew we have two competitions every year and didn’t notice they are so much fun. Competition had already been done during last past 6 weeks and now is time to harvest awards! I was impressed when I saw those robots kicking balls into goals so accurately. What’s more, they were controlled by a group kids who’s only 15-17 years old. However, in China, college students have such kind robot competition also but only limited top 100 universities. There’s no way for high school students to design their own robots. I think I find one more reason that America is more advanced than China.
Because I’m still kind new in the team, this trip also gave me more chances to know all members. The 4 years age gap didn’t forbid me making friends with high school freshmen. Maybe because I’m from China, they are pretty carious about me, which makes more topics between us. From the talk, I know more about how the American high school life looks like although I didn’t go through it.
Although we didn’t get any major awards from competition this year, I think from all we learned from this trip, next year’s robot will be even better!

Long time no see Michigan
Tech! It was a big surprise when
I came back last Saturday. When
we left Houghton last week, we
still had tons of snow. But now
almost all the snow is gone on
campus. Snow statues collapsed
and fell into several pieces on
the ground and are now melting.
I think Houghton is ready for her
spring. I hope everyone had an
awesome spring break. Are you
ready for my spring break story
this week?
Luckily, I got the chance to
go down to Texas with the
Habitat for Humanity group
at Michigan Tech. The city we
It is a very beautiful city along
the southern coast. There are
too many things to talk about
during last week. However, to
stick with my column’s theme, I
found many cultural di

Events for cultural diversity have grown in size and dominance on-campus. Overflowing to the Houghton community, the parades, musical and dining events, performances, speeches, and organizations have given Michigan Tech students and Houghton residents a multitude of opportunities, almost weekly, to engage in a cultural besides their own. The advent of many of these informative and often celebrative events may be due to one of the newest educational opportunities on-campus—The Diversity Minor.
In 2003, faculty and administrators gathered to address the “diversity problem”, namely the low numbers associated with recruiting and retaining diverse students, faculty, and staff on Michigan Tech’s campus. The outcome, initiated three years later, passed through the Department Administration, the University Senate, and then more administration. Michigan Tech’s response to the “diversity problem” is the relatively new Diversity Minor.
Rhetoric from the proposal to the University Senate argued that an inclusion of diversity studies in Michigan Tech students’ curricular options would address the recruit/retain issue as well as provide an opportunity to educate Michigan Tech students about diversity in the United States.
“The faculty, students, and courses in this minor could have a campus-wide impact far greater than just the number of students selecting this minor might suggest. Such a minor could help to improve the climate for underrepresented groups on campus and, thus, could help with recruiting and retaining underrepresented students, faculty, and staff.” –Senate Proposal 15-07 submitted January 2007.
The Diversity Minor offers students a chance to experience and explore diversity in an academic context but some of the additional benefits expected by the Diversity Studies Committee are the “Ripple Effects”. Mainly, the establishment of a committee dedicated to implementing and supporting courses, events, and organizations on-campus that offer students opportunities to venture into an academic discourse in a variety of contemporary topics in U.S. diversity.
One of the cornerstones of the Diversity Minor is the belief that “problems are more often solved by the collective effort of people involved in many smaller initiatives.” An academic approach is not the “one hundred percent solution” and instead the committee will supplement instead of run, replace, or claim jurisdiction over the on-going efforts of cultural groups that have already been well established at Michigan Tech and in the Keweenaw area for many years.
The Diversity Studies Committee has been busy this year already and the opportunities for students to become active and informed about diversity topics and concerns is increasing. A short list of ten activities pursued by the Diversity Studies Committee this year follows:

On Friday, January 22, visitors to the Rozsa Center had the opportunity to see, and in some cases experience, firsthand what hypnosis really is… and what it is not.
“Hypnosis is not silver pocketwatches, black and white tuxedoes, or black and white spiral wheels,” hypnotist Dale K. explained to the Rozsa audience. To demonstrate, he produced one such wheel from his fairly large store of props and asked the audience to stare at the center as he spun the wheel, then to look at his head, which would appear to grow or shrink. He explained that while that was a fun optical illusion, it was not in any way actual hypnosis.
For his actual demonstration of hypnosis, K. asked for a number of volunteers from the audience to come up to the stage and be hypnotized, warning potential volunteers that the demonstration would only work if they were willing to go along with it; if they volunteered to “prove” that they couldn’t be affected by hypnosis, they would almost certainly turn out to be right. He also explained that “there may be times when you feel perfectly normal, so normal you may think it’s not working. This is a big mistake, as that’s usually when it’s working the most… you do not need to understand why this will work, just that it will work.”
Once K. had begun hypnotizing the volunteers, he asked them to imagine that they were holding a large helium balloon in one hand, and a heavy weight in the other. Almost all of the volunteers reacted as if this were actually the case. Later on in the show, after some of the volunteers who weren’t successfully hypnotized returned to the audience, K. encouraged the remaining volunteers to act as if they were in increasingly humorous scenarios. One person would loudly moo whenever a bell was rung, and forget that he had done so. Another person would claim that his name was “Princess” whenever he was wearing a frilly princess hat, another one of K’s props. And all of the volunteers were acted as though a stuffed “Barney the Dinosaur” doll had told them to shut up, prompting them to all shout back, “No, you shut up.”
K. also explained what really happens during hypnosis. K. contends that the general public’s perception of hypnosis, which he describes as “sleep walking zombies that are under the complete control of an evil hypnotist,” is entirely inaccurate. Real hypnosis is about “turn[ing] your imagination on,” not mind control, he explained. “Don’t think of it as hypnosis, think of it as the power of suggestion.”
Dale K. has been a hypnotist for almost twenty years. This was his fifth at Michigan Tech.

The sight of university students, bundled in hats, jackets, and perhaps some cozy Carhartts building snowman, or the oddsnowwoman, is not an uncommon sight for many campuses across the Northern regions of the U.S. What turns heads about the traditional symbol of wintery weather in Houghton is that our university peers spend their time diligently shaping giant chess pieces, scrabble tiles, and maybe even a character from our favorite Mario games out of the snow and ice. When the weather is cold and the snow is deep, Michigan Tech students have always known that Carnival is right around the corner.

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On Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010 the streets were filled with glorious snow, for the second annual Jibba Jabba Rail Jam hosted by Rhythm skateshop in downtown Houghton.
The event was held on Huron Street, snow piled high from the plows blocking off the section of street next to the skateshop. Hot dogs from local vendors and chilli, soup, hot cocoa, and Monster energy drinks provided by the Library Bar and Grill warmed the crowd and rejuvenated the competitors.
Over one hundred competitors took their turn on the hill, more than doubling the turnout from the last year.  Competitors came from around the U.P. including members of the snowboarding community from Marquette who put on a show, with Rob Michel of Northern Michigan University winning first-place in the advanced category.
The warm, sunny weather may have helped the community gathering. T-shirts and bandanas went to all participants, part of the $10 entrance fee, while cash prizes and merchandise went to the top three winners in each category: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Skiing.
The competition was an impressive collaboration between the youthful culture of snowboarding, the city of Houghton, and local business. With events like these, the progression of the snowboarding culture in Houghton and Keweenaw counties continues to advance.  Last winter, the mild temperatures and sizable snow pack attracted notice from nationally renowned Forum snowboarding team.  Look for familiar scenes such as behind Shopko and area’s just off of Sheldon Avenue in theForum film released earlier this winter, “Forever”.  Houghton, and the U.P. in general, has long been praised by the lucky few who have traveled here looking for outdoor adventures.

The Parking Task Force, an 11-member group of University members who were asked by President Glenn D. Mroz to review and evaluate current campus parking procedures, has been given a three-month extension for their deadline.
The Task Force was originally asked by President Mroz to evaluate the functionality and effectiveness of existing parking gates, current parking ticket violations and associated fines, the possibility of creating an appeals process for contested parking citations that will be efficient and effective and establishing collection procedures for persons delinquent in paying their parking citations. The Task Force was originally asked to have their set of recommendations completed by Jan. 1 but has been given until March 30 by request of Ellen Horsch, the chair of the Parking Task Force.
According to an e-mail sent by Horsch to President Mroz, “[t]he Parking Task Force has been meeting regularly to address our charge and committee tasks.”
To date, the Task Force has “[d]etermined that except for the visitor lot, we do not need gates for admittance in parking lots, [f]ound the current decentralized structure should be centralized, [i]s developing electronic processes for yearly on-line registration” and “[r]ecognizes that the enforcement of current policies…must be applied consistently and updated to adhere to Michigan law.”
Judging by Horsch’s summation of the Task Force’s accomplishments, the group has not been able to address many of the tasks that they were asked to evaluate. Out of the four points listed above, only one truly exhibits a definite change in parking policies. The other three merely state that the Task Force recognizes that there is a problem with current parking procedures.
The original charge put forth by President Mroz asked the committee to address nine tasks. Of these nine tasks, only two have been addressed according to Horsch’s e-mail to President Mroz. However, in the two-and-a-half months that elapsed since the Task Force’s creation and Horsch’s update, it is surprising that so little concrete progress has been made. Perhaps the Task Force has been analyzing each task very closely, but Horsch’s e-mail leaves me feeling less than optimistic.
So far, the Task Force’s meetings have not been open to the public. Students were told to e-mail either Dan Bennett, director of Public Safety and Police Services, or one of the students on the Task Force in order to provide their input.
Last semester, the Undergraduate Student Government hosted a two-hour meeting during a school day in which students could talk with the Task Force about their questions, concerns and suggestions on the parking situation.
In Horsch’s e-mail to President Mroz, she states that “[w]e have made significant progress and have asked for input from various groups on campus.” However, if the only channels through which students could voice their concerns were poorly publicized e-mail addresses and a meeting in the middle of a school day, can the Task Force legitimately claim that they have had sufficient student input?
The Task Force has doubled the amount of time they have to analyze the University’s parking policies, however the student body’s input seems to have taken the back seat. Although the Task Force claims to be available for student input, students have not been given ample opportunity to voice their opinions – especially for a topic that has as many repercussions as parking on campus.
With a two-fold increase in the time until their deadline, I would expect a two-fold increase in the amount of public forums for students to express their concerns and ideas. However, given that the Task Force’s meetings have been behind closed doors since its creation, I doubt that the group plans to become any more accessible before their deadline.

This weekend the Michigan Tech Nordic Ski teams will head to the Twin Cities for the Central Super Tour Races on Saturday and Sunday. Tech skiers look to rebound after having difficulties in Anchorage, Alaska when they ran into not only a tough field of skiers but also had a day of equipment problems (waxing issues). The good news to take from Alaska is that Tech skiers fared well against Central Region Skiers.
The Women will be led by Riikonen-Purtsi who finished the weekend in Alaska tied for second overall in the Central Region. Senior Elizabeth Quinley will be counted on if the team has a chance of doing well. Quinley finished with 75 points in Alaska finishing 13th overall. On the Men’s side, the team will lean on two guys who had big weeks in Alaska. Senior Jesse Lang finished 4th in the Central Region and 9th overall. Colin Singleton finished 15th overall with 61 points, but the numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt on both sides with the waxing issues that slowed down the times and cost the team points in Anchorage.
With the bad waxing, which hopefully will be avoided this weekend, taken into account it seems as though Tech Skiers should have a good weekend in Minneapolis as they face off against Central Region competition. The next leg of the Central Super Tour will take place next weekend in Cable, Wisconsin.