addenda The University of Tennessee at Martin Faculty and Staff Newsletter April 4, 2016 UT Board of Trustees approves decrease in UT Martin out-of-state tuition The University of Tennessee Board of Trustees approved a decrease in the University of Tennessee at Martin s outof-state tuition rate during its spring meeting March 31-April 1 on the UT Martin campus. This decrease was strategically designed to make UT Martin competitive with the in-state tuition rates of universities in surrounding states, said Dr. Bob Smith, UT Martin interim chancellor. The 33 percent decrease will take effect in the fall 2016 semester and make UT Martin a more viable option for out-of-state students. Students who meet additional academic requirements may qualify for the Explorer Scholarship, a value of $5,000 per year, provided they remain in good academic standing, are enrolled full-time, live in UT Martin on-campus housing and UT Martin still among the safest Tennessee campuses According to the 2015 Crime on Campus report released by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, UT Martin remains among the safest public four-year college campuses in Tennessee. The report shows that UT Martin has the least number of index crimes of all public fouryear universities in Tennessee and tied with East Tennessee State University for the lowest rate of index crimes per 1,000 people. purchase a qualifying meal plan each semester. With these changes, out of state students could potentially save $12,000 or more as compared to previous years a savings rate of approximately 56 percent. The tuition decrease and scholarship apply to both new and current out-of-state students, beginning with the fall 2016 semester. When it comes to prospective students and families selecting a college or university, cost is often a major factor in that decision. For a long time, UT Martin has been an institution of choice for students in our state. Now we are positioned to be very competitive for outof-state students and families, said Dr. Jamie Mantooth, executive director, UT Martin Office of Enrollment Services and Student Engagement. We Index crimes are those considered serious felony offenses and include murder, kidnapping, robbery, aggravated and sexual assaults, arson, burglary and motor vehicle thefts. UT Martin had 33 such offenses reported in 2015, with five incidents per 1,000 people. This number is down from 41 in 2014. UT Martin had the lowest number of group A offenses as well, with only 78 incidents reported in 2015. Group A ADDRESSING THE BOARD Dr. Bob Smith, UT Martin interim chancellor, is shown addressing the UT Board of Trustees during a committee meeting March 31. look forward to introducing our excellent academic programs and vibrant student life to many who may now consider us as an affordable out-of-state destination. These changes do not apply to offenses are serious crimes not considered index crimes. This number is down from 87 reported in 2014. The university community should take a lot of pride in another low crime rate. The caliber of students and staff who attend and work here on campus is the main reason we have the lowest crime rate among four-year public universities, said Scott Robbins, director, Department of Public Safety. The main campus is patrolled online or international students. For more information, contact the UT Martin Office of Undergraduate Admissions at 731-881-7020 or email admitme@utm.edu. 24 hours a day, and the campus community is consistently taught how to be securityminded in their daily activities. Freshmen attend special training sessions in their first year to instruct them on basic personal safety, property security and an awareness of current surroundings. For more information, contact Robbins at 731-881-7775.
page 2 addenda April 4, 2016 YoUTMs faculty, staff and student excellence Fourteen faculty members, 10 undergraduate students and one graduate student from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics attended the Southeastern Mathematical Association of America meeting March 25-26 at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Louis Kolitsch (above, far left), professor, gave a presentation titled Investigating the Truncated Jacobi Triple Product, and Dr. Jason DeVito (middle, left), associate professor, presented New Examples of Almost Positive Curvature. Dr. Stephanie Kolitsch (middle, right), professor, taught a three-hour course titled Using Instructional Tasks in College Algebra and Pre-calculus to Improve Conceptual Understanding. Dr. Brian Wagner (far right), associate professor, co-organized the student Jeopardy! tournament, in which a team of four UT Martin students competed. One UT Martin student presented a poster and three gave oral presentations, including Sarah Locke, who received one of eight Walt and Susan Patterson Prizes for outstanding presentation by an undergraduate. Locke is the first UT Martin student to receive this award. She is mentored by Dr. Amanda Niedzialomski, assistant professor. surplus auction 10 a.m., April 9 Physical Plant Warehouse Items may be viewed from 8 a.m. No personal checks. electronics, music equipment, office furniture, window AC units Contact Wanda Griffin at wgriffin@utm.edu or 881-7803 for more info Follow the Chancellor s search at tennessee.edu/execsearch/utm-chancellor/ Dr. Daniel Nappo, professor of Spanish, presented a paper titled Antithesis in the Lyrics of Joaquín Sabina on March 25 during the annual Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference in Seattle, Wash. Nappo also moderated a table discussion on world music.
page 3 addenda April 4, 2016 Author Jeff Hardin is 2016 Paul Meek Literary Legacy Speaker Jeff Hardin, of Savannah, will speak at UT Martin beginning at 7:30 p.m., April 7, in the Paul Meek Library. Hardin s presentation, Imagining the Language, Imagining a Life, is part of both the university s Paul Meek Literary Legacy Speaker Series and the Academic Speaker Series. Hardin is the author of two chapbooks, Deep in the Shallows and The Slow Hill Out, published in 2002 and 2003, respectively. He has also written four collections of poetry, Fall Sanctuary, which received the Nicholas Roerich Prize from Story Line Press; Notes for a Praise Book; Restoring the Narrative, which received the 2015 Donald Justice Poetry Prize; and Small Revolution, which is forthcoming in 2016. He holds a bachelor s degree in English from Austin Peay State University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry from the University of Alabama. Hardin is currently a professor of English at Columbia State Community College. Hardin will also facilitate a poetry workshop at 1 p.m., April 7, in room 308 of the UT Martin Andy Holt Humanities Building. The workshop, titled Apostrophe/address poems: Who is this you to whom we are speaking? is free and open to the public. Hardin will also meet with several university classes and with students from Martin Middle School throughout the day. The event is co-sponsored by Dr. Anne Meek, Honors Programs and the Department of English and Modern Foreign Languages. Meek is the daughter of the late Paul Meek, who led the Martin campus from 1934-67. Samples of Hardin s poetry can be found at jeffhardin. weebly.com. For more information on the Paul Meek Literary Legacy Speaker Series, contact Sam Richardson, Paul Meek Library interim director, at 731-881- 7065. LEGACY SPEAKER Jeff Hardin, professor of English at Columbia State Community College, will be the 2016 Paul Meek Literary Legacy Speaker on April 7. The University of Tennessee at Martin Department of Music will continue its spring concert season during the week of April 4-10. All performances will take place in the Fine Arts Building s Blankenship Recital Hall unless otherwise noted. The UT Martin Tuba/ Euphonium Ensemble will give its spring recital at 7:30 p.m., April 5. The ensemble will present works by American composers such as John Stevens, Stephen Bulla and Winston Morris. There will be a faculty trombone recital at 7:30 p.m., April 7. The annual Lyric Opera Theatre will take place at 7:30 p.m., April 8-9, in the Fulton Theatre. This year s performance, Once Upon A Fairy Tale, will highlight the stories of The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Little Red Riding Hood. Lyric Opera tickets are $6 for adults. Children and students, with student ID, are admitted free of charge. Tickets can be purchased at the door prior to each performance. There are three concert events to take place April 10. The evening will begin with University Singers and New Pacers ensembles at 3 p.m. The Choro das 3 ensemble will then perform at 5 p.m. in the Fulton Theatre. The ensemble, which features Brazilian choro music, is comprised of three sisters and their father playing flute, guitar, mandolin, clarinet, banjo, piano and pandeiro. The group is internationally known and has conducted workshops and performances in Brazil, Mexico, France and the United States. The Sax O Clock Quartet will then perform that evening at 7:30 p.m. The quartet is made up of four local music educators: Jared Nobles, of Dyersburg High School; Jeffrey McLemore, of Rose Hill Middle School; Wesley Brockman, of Gibson County Schools; and Dr. Douglas Owens, of UT Martin. The group will perform the May, June and July suite by Michael Torke and Three Improvisations by Phil Woods. For more information on these and other music events, contact the UT Martin Department of Music at 731-881-7402.
page 4 addenda April 4, 2016 Engineering students place third overall, second in flight at international SAE Aero Design East competition Seven UT Martin students competed in the international SAE Aero Design East competition, held March 11-13 in Ft. Worth, Texas, and won third place overall behind Georgia Tech and a national team from Poland. The team also won second place in the flight category. Seventy-five teams from universities, colleges and technical schools around the world competed in the annual event, which is sponsored by professional aerospace firms including Lockheed Martin. The UT Martin team competed against 16 other teams in the advanced category, and was the only school present without an independent aerospace program or related major. The purpose of the competition is to engage and explore all these little engineering techniques we ve learned over the past four years and really apply them to the real world in a real-world situation, said Cameron Westbrook, a sophomore from Nashville and the only non-senior teammate. The competition really pushes us to do the most we can with the skills we have. Teammates Wesley Cox, of Paris; Taylor Higgason, of Petal, Miss.; Josh Johnson, of Martin; Matthew Laudermilk, of Milan; Gauri Patel, of Humboldt; Junior Overacker, of Jackson; and Westbrook, built a radiocontrolled airplane from the ground up based on guidelines determined by the competition objectives. The objective of the 2016 competition was to construct an aircraft capable of delivering four two-pound expellable packages using only a 0.46-cubicinch engine. The team s finished aircraft is approximately 64 A WINNING DESIGN Seven UT Martin students competed in the international SAE Aero Design East competition, held March 11-13 in Ft. Worth, Texas, and won third place overall. Pictured with their aircraft are (l-r) Dr. Doug Sterrett, professor of engineering and team superviser; Gauri Patel, of Humboldt; Junior Overacker, of Jackson; Taylor Higgason, of Petal, Miss.; Josh Johnson, of Martin; Matthew Laudermilk, of Milan; Wesley Cox, of Paris; and Cameron Westbrook, of Nashville. inches long with a nine-foot wingspan and can carry a maximum of roughly 36 pounds. When they (the team) started introduction to aerodynamics in September, most of them didn t even know what the parts of an airplane were, so they ve come a long, long way in a short amount of time, said Doug Sterrett, professor of engineering and team supervisor. Sterrett also serves as the team s competition pilot. While the SAE Aero Design East competition is held in the spring, the work really begins in the fall of the preceding year. Conceptual designs must be completed by early November, with a detailed design finished over Christmas break. All seven students spent their Christmas holiday on campus designing, building and testing their aircraft. A complete technical report, the first phase of competition, was due following the holidays. The second phase of competition takes place in the days leading up to the flight demonstration, when the team must give a complete oral report to a panel of leading industry experts. The actual on-site flight competition is the third and final phase and includes a score based on the weight of an empty aircraft, the maximum carrying weight, flight capabilities and the number and accuracy of packages dropped onto a designated target. While Sterrett pilots the plane, the student crew monitors videofeed from the aircraft, satellite positioning, telemetry data, battery power, air and ground speed, direction and a host of other factors to guide Sterrett over the target and release the packages at the appropriate time. The UT Martin team left the field with the most impressive package accuracy. It s an entire engineering system, said Sterrett. It s a control system, a video system, a package drop system, a telemetry system, and engine system. There s a lot more to it than just an aircraft. Seniors in UT Martin s engineering program may choose from a variety of senior design projects, but the airplane design project is one of the more intricate and unpredictable options. No matter what happens, you ve got to be ready to fix it. You ve got to think on your toes and get everything ready to go up again, said Laudermilk. The team believes in Murphy s Laws, which say that anything bad that can happen, will happen. Flight tests are a necessary component to prepare Engineering on page 4
page 5 addenda April 4, 2016 Engineering from page 4 for the final competition, but every flight is a risk. The team s aircraft crashed once before the trip to Houston and was badly damaged, requiring hours of repair. However, this risk appeals to many students. Everything s more dangerous with this project. It s more exciting, more challenging, said Cox. The reason I chose this is because I thought since it s a smaller and more closeknit team, I thought we could be more competitive in the long run by working well together. This is UT Martin s fourth year of participation in the SAE Aero Design East competition. In 2015 the students placed third overall and third in the technological report and closest to target categories, and was the highest-ranked American team. The 2017 team, assembled this fall, will use the current aircraft for testing to determine their own original design and learn from the team before them. Hands-on, practical experience is a key component in a UT Martin education, and these students will enter the workforce with a unique advantage over untested applicants. Not only do they have the classroom education necessary to enter their field of choice, they also have proven abilities to back up theoretical knowledge. UT Martin has prepared them for the world beyond its classroom walls, and they will enter the workforce champions in their own right. SERVICE RECOGNIZED Dr. Joe DiPietro, UT System president, made a motion during the UT Board of Trustees spring meeting to formally recognize Dr. Tom Rakes, professor of education and former UT Martin chancellor, for his service to the board, the UT System and UT Martin. Rakes served as UT Martin chancellor from 2007 until resuming his faculty position in 2015. S.H.A.P.E. Club to host 5k ROBINSON REMEMBERS MIKE MUNKEL AS MENTOR AND FRIEND Dr. Lemoyne Robinson (center), a 1993 University of Tennessee at Martin graduate who lives in Memphis, donated a lamp post to the university in memory of the late Mike Munkel, food services director for more than 14 years, who passed away in October 2005. Robinson, now chancellor of City University Schools in Memphis, worked for food services while attending UTM and recognized the late Munkel as a mentor and friend. For me, UT Martin will always be home, Robinson told those gathered to remember Munkel and recognize Robinson's gift. Members of the university s student affairs and Sodexo Dining Services staffs were among those in attendance. Pictured with Robinson are Dr. Bob Smith (left), UT Martin interim chancellor, and Dr. Phil Watkins (right), vice chancellor emeritus of student affairs. For more information on how to make a university gift, contact the Office of University Development at 731-881-7654. The S.H.A.P.E. Club will host its annual 5k color dash and fun run beginning at 9 a.m., April 9, outside the Kathleen and Tom Elam Center. A color run is where onlookers throw colored powder onto participants as they pass by, creating a unique look by the end of the race. The entry fee is $25 per person. Participants are encouraged to wear white T-shirts or clothing that can get dirty. Awards will be presented to overall winners and runners from each age division. Door prizes will also be given away after the race. All event proceeds will benefit Special Olympics. Those interested can sign up online at www.eventbrite.com/ by searching for the UTM Shape Club Color Dash. Raceday registration will begin at 7:30 a.m.
page 6 addenda April 4, 2016 WestStar to host African American Leadership Conference April 19 The UT Martin WestStar Leadership Program will host the 18th annual African American Leadership Conference from 8 a.m.-2:15 p.m., April 19, at the Jackson- Madison County General Hospital in Jackson. This year s conference theme is Challenges and Opportunities. William Godwin, director of external affairs at One Chance Illinois in Chicago, will be the keynote speaker. Godwin is an attorney, real estate broker, entrepreneur and public speaker, and has served many years in higher education. He holds a bachelor s degree from Georgetown University and a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School. A continental breakfast will be available beginning at 8 a.m., and attendees will be welcomed at 8:30 by Dr. Bob Smith, interim April 5 Tuba/euphonium ensemble concert; Blankenship Recital Hall; 7:30 p.m. April 6 Softball vs. Southern Illinois; Bettye Giles Field; 4 p.m. April 7 Concert Series: faculty trombone recital; Blankenship Recital Hall; 7:30 p.m. April 8-9 Lyric Opera Theatre; Fulton Theatre; 7:30 p.m. nightly; admission April 8 Tennis vs. Morehead State; Skyhawk Tennis Complex; 2 p.m. April 8 Baseball vs. Eastern Kentucky; Skyhawk Park; 6 p.m. April 9 Tennis vs. Eastern Kentucky; Skyhawk Tennis Complex; 10 a.m. April 9 Surplus auction; Physical Plant Warehouse; Calendar chancellor, and Charley Deal, WestStar executive director. Godwin will present his keynote address at 8:45 followed by Dr. Reginald Williams, principal of the Memphis Academy of Health Sciences. Darron Billings, chief of police at Jackson State Community College, and Marchell Gardner, long-term care ombudsman for Northwest Tennessee, will speak before lunch. Ed Stanton, U.S. Attorney General, West Tennessee District, and Sgt. Derick Tisdale, public information officer with the Jackson Police Department, will speak in the afternon. The conference cost is $35 per person, which includes breakfast and lunch. Participants must register with the WestStar Leadership Program office by April 13, and seating is limited. Interested parties may send a 10 a.m. April 9 Softball vs. Tennessee Tech; Bettye Giles Field; 1 and 3 p.m. April 9 Baseball vs. Eastern Kentucky; Skyhawk Park; 3 p.m. April 10 Baseball vs. Eastern Kentucky; Skyhawk Park; 1 p.m. April 10 Softball vs. Jacksonville State; Bettye Giles Field; 1 and 3 p.m. April 10 Honors Day; Watkins Auditorium; 2 p.m. April 10 Spring choral concert; Blankenship Recital Hall; 3 p.m. April 10 Choro das 3 ensemble; Fulton Theatre; 5 p.m. April 10 Sax O Clock ensemble; Blankenship Recital Hall; 7:30 p.m. addenda UPCOMING CONFERENCE UT Martin s WestStar Leadership Program will host the 18th annual African American Leadership Conference from 8 a.m.-2:15 p.m., April 19, at the Jackson-Madison County General Hospital in Jackson. Pictured at the 2015 conference are (l-r) Virginia Grimes, WestStar coordinator; James Travis, of Henry County; and Evelyn Robertson Jr., of Whiteville, who served as last year s conference emcee. check to WestStar, UT Martin, 321 Administration Building, Martin, TN, 38237. Registrants may also call 731-881-3298 to pay via credit card. YoU Tell Me For information, contact Jordan Jones, WestStar administrative assistant, at jone239@utm.edu or 731-881- 3298. Questions and Answers about UT Martin Question Honors Day is set for 2 p.m., Sunday, April 10, in Watkins Auditorium. Who is recognized during the Honors Day event, and can anyone attend? Answer Honors Day is an annual spring event that recognizes UT Martin s outstanding faulty and students. In addition to 125 student awards, six faculty members are also honored for outstanding achievements in scholarship, leadership, teaching and advising. Honors Day includes a featured speaker followed by the recognition program. Many family and friends of students and faculty attend, and anyone is welcome. Submit your questions to the Suggestion Box link at www.utm.edu. The University of Tennessee at Martin Published weekly during the academic year and biweekly during the summer by UT Martin, Martin, TN 38238 Dr. Joseph DiPietro President, University of Tennessee System Dr. Robert M. Smith Interim Chancellor Nathan Morgan Addenda Editor UT Martin is an EEO/AA/Title VI/Title IX/Section 504/ADA/ADEA employer. E05-0425-00-001-16