Campus and community briefs
ASME students place second at competition
Utah State University’s American Society of Mechanical Engineers competed at the 2003 Student Design Contest in Las Cruces, N.M., on April 4 and 5.
Several students placed at the competition and USU took second place overall.
Andy Snow took first place in the poster competition. He prepared a technical poster on “Human Powered Vehicle Ergonometric Analysis.” James Holloway took second place in the poster competition with his poster on “Internal Combustion on Mars.”
Brett Rupper took fifth place for his presentation on “Internal Combustion on Mars: a feasibility study,” and Jared Tonioli took fourth place for his presentation on “Modular Design for the Optimization of Root Zone Substrates for Variable Gravity.”
RB Hayes, Brayden Hall and Pete Zemke participated in the design competition.
As president of ASME, Tonioli said, “The competition is for engineering students to show what they know, practice professional skills they will need for employment and have some fun.”
They competed against students from Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming.
ASME participates in the competition every year. Last year they won the competition with a total of 620 points. This year the finished with 900 points behind Colorado State University who had 1000 points.
“We are already looking to pass the 1,000-point mark for next year,” Tonioli said.
USU project presented in national journal
Four Utah State University speech communication research students are getting national recognition for a project they recently conducted.
The students research has been selected to be presented at the International Communication Association’s annual meeting in San Diego in May. More notably, the students research has been accepted for publication as a short empirical report in the national journal Perceptual and Motor Skills.
Tomie Day Bankhead, Amy Bench, Trisha Peterson and Risa Place conducted the research project under the supervision of professor John S. Seiter. The group examined how emotionally intense language affects an attitude change in people.
JCOM students place in region competition
Utah State University journalism students won 13 awards at the annual Mark of Excellence Awards competition at the Society of Professional Journalists regional convention in Cedar City on April 4 and 5.
The prizes recognize the best of student print, broadcast and online journalism in the five-state region, and were announced Saturday, April 5 during ceremonies at Southern Utah University.
The highlight of this year’s awards was a complete sweep of the online news category by USU students, who took all nine of the honors awarded in the category for a student news Web site. Their work appeared during the 2002-03 academic year on The Hard News Café, which last year was named one of the top three student-produced news Web sites in the country.
English department garners top awards
The department of English at Utah State University earned four of the 10 college awards presented by the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
Mary Ellen Greenwood, graduate instructor and assistant director of writing, received the Teaching Assistant of the Year Award, Writing Center Director Andrea Peterson earned the award for outstanding employee in the professional division, Mark Zachry, assistant professor of English, earned the Teacher of the Year, Humanities Division award and associate professor Charlotte Thralls, a specialist in professional and technical writing, received the Humanist of the Year Award.