Center for Information and Communication Sciences

Transcription

1 Center for Information and Communication Sciences A note from Dr. Jones F A L L S E M E S T E R Dear Alumni & Friends of the Center: The 27th year of the Center has started off and we have some exciting news to share as we bring a new class into the family and network of CICS. The program has been recognized this year for the first time by the state and federal government as a STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) program. This has huge impact for writing grants, extending visas for international students, and for our profile regionally and nationally as an official technology program. We are also labeled as a "high-impact" program defined by the Ball State administration and over the past five years, new data show we are the largest graduate STEM program on campus. This isn't news to those companies who continue to come to the Center to hire the talent that drives their technology organizations. This past graduating class has had exceptional success regionally and nationally with placement. New this year: AT&T after a long pause in hiring technical positions from the Center has restarted their engineering associate program (thanks Matt Bruening) and Cerner has started recruiting and hiring consultants (thanks Greg Hoots) from our ranks. Our other long-term partners Cisco, Accenture, Orange, Impact Advisors, Adtran, Burwood and Interactive Intelligence (I would have to thank about twenty people here!) have been exceptionally great in getting our students in their doors. The list of companies noted have one key connection: they all have alumni who still believe in what we do and how we do it with getting young professionals ready for the ICT industry and push their HR managers to come to the Center even when we are not on their corporate hiring radar. Thanks for continuing to be a part of the Center. We hope all is well on your side of the newsletter.

2 P A G E 2 Netriders Competition By Sarah Herpst October 19 th marked the final day to register for NetRiders, a Cisco Networking Academy competition aimed at fostering network skills among students. Students of the program have the opportunity to improve their networking skills by participating in a series of online exams and activities that utilize Cisco Packet Tracer. While the competition boasts the chance to win a trip to Cisco Systems in San Jose, California as an incentive to participate, it has far more to offer in terms of beneficial experience. Lisa Cappa, one of the organizers for the event, explained further what the program has to offer CICS students in particular. NetRiders is a great way for students to test their skills in Cisco Systems such as CCNA and IT Essentials, Cappa said. It gives them and their instructors the opportunity to see where the student is at in terms of understanding systems. In addition to testing skills CICS students will be learning in the second half of course 620, the program offers the opportunity to gain practical experience with the technology. Hands on experience is vital to your success in this field, Cappa explains. Technology cannot be learned by mere theory and thought. Application has to be a part of the learning process. NetRiders and Cisco Academies provide that hands on experience. Currently, the Academy Support Center Partnership (ASCP) has 18 academies consisting of 89 students and 10 instructors. Six of the participants are students at the Center for Information and Communication Sciences. Wine Dinner & Networking Event By Sarah Herpst & Dana Davis September 21 st marked the annual CICS Wine Dinner & Networking Event. The social networking event, held at the Minnetrista, was catered by Epicureans. Chris Liechti is chef-owner of Epicureans, and has a culinary carrier that spans 3 decades. Liechti is a graduate with honors of the renowned Culinary Institute of America. He has apprenticed under a culinary Olympic gold medalist Dudly McMahon and studied with Master Pastry chef Emil Waldis of Switzerland. Host of the event Karen Mangia,(class of 1998) and her longtime partner Thom England helped pair wine with he food while giving tips dinner etiquette. The night also consisted of several alumni of the program (Jason Chamness (1998), Beau King (2000) Doug Stanley (2001) and Tony Piazza(2005) speaking and giving students helpful tips on what to do while out having dinner with business partners. The evening was a chance for current students to mingle with alumni and learn proper dinner and wine etiquette. Throughout the evening, Liechti prepared a number of courses that paired well with a particular wine. Between courses, students had the opportunity to listen to alumni share valuable business stories and lessons. Current student Chelsea Holmes says it was a great opportunity for CICS students to meet alumni and improve on our professional skills. I even had the joy of my brother CJ Holmes, CICS alumni of 2009, to enjoy this experience with. The evening concluded with Dr. Jones thanking all participating alumni on behalf of the center for helping to put together such a successful event.

3 V O L U M E 1, I S S U E 1 P A G E 3 Kovac earns Fulbright scholarship to Slovakia By Sarah Boswell A Center for Information and Communications Sciences professor will travel to Slovakia in February on a Fulbright teaching scholarship, the first ever awarded to a CICS professor. Ron Kovac will break in his fourth passport with this trip, having already visited about 50 countries in every habitable continent. I m very excited to go back, he said, to immerse myself in a different culture, to play ambassador for the U.S., and to meet new people. Kovac has been to Slovakia four times already; his parents were born there, and he likes to catch up with family while also attending international conferences. Kovac said he hopes to bridge the gap between the East European country and ours, and to bring back new ideas in the areas of research, teaching and student learning styles. Kovac was chosen from a pool of international applicants, and he will be joined by two other American professors. His main objectives for the trip are to teach, to establish a foreign exchange program with one of the universities, and to create new opportunities for American telecommunication companies in Slovakia and of course, to catch up with family. That means weekend skiing and hiking trips in the mountain town where his family lives near the border of Poland. He said it s not uncommon to see a whole Fulbright program after his daughter spent a semester in Passau, Germany, as a Fulbright English teaching assistant in He will be in Slovakia from February to May and will teach at Technicka Univerzita V Kosiciach in the town of Kosice. With this trip, he plans to bring back best practices that will benefit both CICS students and American telecom professionals. Kovac has extensive experience as a professional and educator. He helped create and update curricula for the Cisco Networking Academy. He has been a professor at CICS for 12 years, and he s written two books on internetworking. This varied background has permitted me to walk between both disciplines and effectively solve problems and create new opportunities, Kovac said. family moms, dads, dogs, grandparents all out skiing on Sunday afternoons. Kovac said he became interested in the C E N T E R F O R I N F O R M A T I O N A N D C O M M U N I C A T I O N S C I E N C E S

4 P A G E 4 Exchange Student Compares Learning Styles Between France & America By Sarah Boswell Aymane Nadi, 22, is studying ICS as a foreign exchange student from Telecom Bretagne, a university in Western France. After just three months in the program, he s noticing the differences in learning styles between France and the United States. In the U.S., you are expected to provide a lot of effort outside of the classroom, he said. It was a hard transition. In France, students worked mostly in class and had few outside projects. Nadi is attending CICS as his third and final year of college after a one-year internship in multimedia content creation. He wants to pursue a career in technology consulting. There are a lot of good things here [in the ICS program], Nadi said. I was surprised how nice people are here. Everyone was helping me. It made the [transition] easier. The world is getting smaller, Kovac said, and it is important to understand how to communicate globally. To survive, you re going to have to be international and know how technology works around the world. Take opportunities, because they don t just come to you. International Dinner By Sarah Herpst & Dana Davis At the Center for Information and Communication Sciences every year we have an annual International dinner in which noninternational students, international students, and faculty come together and learn about each other s cultures. This year with a big response of students and food the international dinner was yet another success. This year students came together from all regions of America, Morocco, India, and also Saudi Arabia. The students and faculty came together and engaged in casual conversation, danced and enjoyed an evening of fun. CICS International Student Aymane Nadi said, the international dinner was a great experience. It presented an excellent opportunity to share parts of our culture, through food. Although students where stressed from papers, and preparing for midterms the international dinner was a good way for them to get away for a bit and enjoy a night out of fun and with friends and family. C E N T E R F O R I N F O R M A T I O N A N D C O M M U N I C A T I O N S C I E N C E S

5 V O L U M E 1, I S S U E 1 Hot Projects for Yorktown Fire Department by Joshua Steffee P A G E 5 Students at the Center for Information and Communication Sciences are working closely with the Yorktown & Mt Pleasant Fire Department and alumni Chief David Boone on two large projects. One project is aimed at updating the fire department s network and the other involves creating a department website. The fire department which is located in Yorktown, IN, serves an area that covers around 35 square miles and houses a population near 20,000 individuals. The volunteer-based emergency responders protect and defend against all types of disasters that range from man-made to natural. The completion of these projects will allow the department to better meet the needs of the community it serves. Consequently, the two CICS project teams have been hard at work since mid September and are making excellent headway. For the networking project, the team has been configuring wireless routers, setting access points and reworking the old network. This project will help the YFD be increasing its reliability and the range of the wireless network, says David Silva who is managing the project. Aside from increasing the effectiveness of the wireless network, Silva says that We also made way for future growth. This will allow the department to send and retrieve data across the network at a much faster rate increasing their efficiency. One of the goals of the website project is to move Yorktown s online presence from a page on the township s site to a stand-alone domain. This give s the department greater flexibility in managing their online image. We hope to bring a high level of online Independence to the fire department, said project member Nick Sharp. It [the site] will provide a way for them to communicate with the community they serve. These projects are great examples of how students receive great experience while making a positive impact for the organizations they serve. Tony Piazza ( 2005) and his wife, Elizabeth, welcomed their son, Harrison Jennings Piazza, to the world September 1, 2012 The Women Working in Technology initiative received a seed grant from the National Center for Women in IT to increase its reach to undergraduate women at Ball State. Also, this year s conference is set for Wednesday, March 20 th at the Alumni Center. Anyone interested in participating or sponsoring the event please contact Kirsten Smith at kirstensmith@bsu.edu or Editorial Board Advisor: Dr. Stephan S. Jones Editor: Dana D. Davis Writers: Dr. Stephan S. Jones, Dana D. Davis, Josh Steffee, Sarah Herpst, Sarah Boswell Photographer: Nathanial Grimm, Kaylie Davis