Students Shine in Professional Competitions
SAN LUIS OBISPO -- Every year, Cal Poly students put their education to the test in national industry and professional competitions across the country, and come out on top. A look at some of this year's winning teams:
Cal Poly Construction Management Students Win Top Honors at National Competition
A group of Cal Poly construction management students captured second place at the recent 2012 National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) International Builders’ Show (IBS) in Orlando, Fla.
More on the construction management students
Cal Poly Multicultural Engineering Program Honors Diverse Group of High Achievers 
Members of Cal Poly’s Multicultural Engineering Program (MEP) who received scholarships for the 2011-12 school year were honored at a recent MEP banquet, where more than $125,000 in scholarships were awarded.
More on the MEP
Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers Honors Five Outstanding Members
The Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers (SWE) announced five recipients of the 2011 Outstanding Women in Engineering and Technology award at this year’s Evening with Industry held Thursday, Jan. 19 at the San Luis Obispo Embassy Suites.
More on the SWE awards
Cal Poly International Business Students Earn Global Recognition
Two student teams from Cal Poly’s Orfalea College of Business recently placed in the top 100 in international business simulation competitions under the guidance of international business Professor J. Michael Geringer.
More on the business students
Floral Team Flourishes for Fourth Consecutive Year
For the fourth time in as many years, the Cal Poly National Floral Design Team finished in the top three in the American Institute of Floral Designers (AIFD) national student competition. The competition was held in San Francisco during the AIFD Symposium. The annual competition garnered entries from 52 students representing 15 schools.
More on the floral team and individual awards
Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers Repeats with Two Team Tech Firsts
Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers (SWE) again set the gold standard for university SWE chapters across the nation at WE11, the society’s Annual Conference held Oct. 13-15 in Chicago. Cal Poly brought home the Gold Award as the nation’s top Outstanding Collegiate Section, and repeated history with two teams that tied for first in the Team Tech competition.
More on the SWE awards
Cal Poly Engineering Sweeps AIAA Student Aircraft Design Competition
Cal Poly Engineering swept first-, second- and third-place awards in the undergraduate and graduate student design competition sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). In the undergraduate contest, teams were required to design an innovative heavy-lift hybrid air vehicle. The top prize went to Cal Poly's Mustang Aerospace team.
More on the aircraft design competition
Cal Poly Engineering Students Win National Heating and Air Conditioning Design Competition
Cal Poly Engineering won first place in the Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) System Selection category of the 2011 student design competition held by the American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).
More on the design competition
Cal Poly Students Excel on Chartered Financial Analyst Exam
In the latest Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Level 1 Exam, 12 Cal Poly business students outperformed thousands of finance professionals by achieving an impressive 60 percent pass rate—well above the national average of 39 percent. The CFA Charter designation is the “gold standard” for finance professionals worldwide and requires passing three rigorous exams. Cal Poly students prepare to take their Level 1 and 2 exams as part of the CFA Challenge, a senior project created by Cyrus Ramezani, Finance Area chair in the Orfalea College of Business. The CFA Challenge is a prime example of Cal Poly’s Learn by Doing approach to education. “Most professionals take this test after they have been in industry for 10 years,” Ramezani said. “Less than 1 percent are college seniors.”
More on Cal Poly's CFA success
Cal Poly Student Selected for ExxonMobil Community Summer Jobs Program
Cal Poly Kinesiology student Mattie McGowen was one of 60 college students chosen to participate in the 2011 ExxonMobil Community Summer Jobs Program. Administered by the ExxonMobil Foundation, the summer jobs program provides exemplary students with eight-week paid internships at one of 267 nonprofit agencies in 12 states in which the company has significant operations.
More on the summer internship program
Concrete Canoe Team Wins Second Consecutive Title with Boat Made of Recycled Toilets
Cal Poly claimed the “America’s Cup of Civil Engineering” for the second consecutive year at the American Society of Civil Engineers National Concrete Canoe Competition on June 18. The school edged out 22 other universities from the U.S. and Canada with a 208-pound, ocean-themed canoe made from concrete and recycled toilets – the Cetacea.
More on the 2011 Concrete Canoe win
Industrial Engineering Major Named Best Employee in the West
Robby Nielsen, student technician for Cal Poly’s Student Project Lab and Mustang ’60 machine shop, is best in the West among state and regional student employees, winning the Western Regional Student Employee of the Year Award.
He was recognized for creating classroom and online professional development programs for student technicians; developing new systems for inventorying and scheduling; and revitalizing campus and community outreach efforts.
More on Nielsen
Cal Poly Master's Student Awarded NSF Grant
Kevin Yamauchi, a master’s candidate in the biomechanics program in Cal Poly’s College of Engineering, has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship worth $90,000 over three years. Yamauchi’s research will focus on the properties of articular cartilage as it relates to treatment of osteoarthritis. The knowledge gained will aid in devising new tools, strategies and therapies to improve tissue repair and regeneration.
More on Yamauchi's research
Cal Poly Housing Collaborative Wins Bank of America Low-Income Housing Challenge
An interdisciplinary team of Cal Poly students took first place in Bank of America’s Low-Income Housing Challenge, beating out master’s degree students fromUC Berkeley and UC Irvine in the final round.
More on the Housing Challenge
Cal Poly Students Take Home Three Top Awards in CSU Research Competition
Three Cal Poly projects were among the statewide winners recently at the 25th Annual California State University student research competition. Winning entries included pharmaceutical research, a method for testing intravascular devices and infill panels to prevent the collapse of steel buildings such as the World Trade Center.
More on the CSU Research Awards
Math Students Move Up in Annual Putnam Competition
Cal Poly moved up in the rankings this year at the annual Putnam Exam -- one of the most difficult math competitions in North America. Cal Poly’s team ranked 62 among 546 participating universities in the United States and Canada, up from 114 last year.
More on the Putnam performance
Cal Poly Earns Innovation Award at Shell Eco-Marathon
The Cal Poly Urban Concept Car Team drove off with the Southwest Research Institute Technical Innovation Award and a third-place finish in the urban concept car category at the 2011 Shell Eco-Marathon. The Cal Poly engineering students focused on the Urban Concept competition, which focuses on more “roadworthy,” fuel-efficient vehicles as opposed to the Prototype category with sleek, wind tunnel-tested cars that get astonishing fuel mileage.
More on the innovative features incorporated into their urban concept car
Architectural Engineering Students Take Two First Place Finishes in Building Design Competition
Cal Poly architectural engineering students were awarded two first place and two runner-up finishes in the second annual Architectural Engineering Student Competition sponsored by the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) Charles Pankow Foundation. The winners were announced at the 2011 Architectural Engineering Conference in Oakland on March 31.
More on the ASCE wins
Cal Poly’s Mustang Daily Captures Third Consecutive College Newspaper of the Year Honor
Cal Poly’s student newspaper, the Mustang Daily, was named College Newspaper of the Year at the College Newspaper Business and Advertising Manager (CNBAM) National Convention on April 2 in Nashville, Tenn. Two Mustang Daily staffers captured personnel awards: Giana Ronzani, an Agricultural Business major graduating in June, for Advertising Manager of the Year, and Jaclyn DeMartini, an Art and Design major also graduating in June, for Advertising Designer of the Year.
More on the Mustang Daily awards
Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers Honors 
Five Outstanding Members
The Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers (SWE) announced the recipients of the 2011 Outstanding Women in Engineering and Technology Award at this year’s Evening With Industry banquet in January at the San Luis Obispo Embassy Suites.
More on the winners
Cal Poly Students Place First in Green Energy Challenge Poster Competition
The Cal Poly student chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association placed first in the poster competition portion of the NECA Green Energy Challenge, which took place in October.
More on the poster competition award
Society of Women Engineers Earn National Awards
Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is a perennial winner at the organization’s national conference and did not disappoint at this year’s event Nov. 4-6 in Orlando, Fla. The group came home with first-place awards for the national Team Tech design contest, Outreach for a Large Section, and Membership Retention for a Larger Section. In addition, current Cal Poly SWE president Stephanie Smith won the award for Scholarship, while past president Lesley Telford and recent graduate Katherine Gage won two of five national Outstanding Collegiate Member awards.
More on SWE awards and success
RPTA Quiz Bowl Team Wins Nationals
The Recreation, Parks & Tourism Administration Department’s Academic Quiz Bowl team was crowned champions of the first National Recreation and Park Association Academic Quiz Bowl last month in Minneapolis, Minn. The event was part of the association’s Annual Congress. More than 5,000 park and recreation professionals, students and faculty from all over the United States.
More on Quiz Bowl Team
RPTA Student Named ‘Future Scholar’
Katherine Soule, a Recreation, Parks & Tourism Administration master’s degree recipient, recently received the prestigious “Future Scholars” award from the Society of Park and Recreation Educators. The award came at the National Recreation and Park Association's Annual Congress in Minneapolis, Minn. Soule was chosen as one of two “Future Scholars” from a pool of 20 nominees from across North America.
More on the 'Future Scholar'
Cal Poly’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Wins National Design Contest Awards
Cal Poly’s chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers earned first- and third-place awards in the design competition and second in the technical poster competition at this year’s SHPE National Conference at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. The design competition challenged participants to design and build robots that would encourage children to be more active. The first-place team presented a Dual Sport Bot, a basketball hoop that uses sonar sensors and infrared technology to detect players within a three-foot radius and then moves away from them. To shoot, children have to run after the hoop.
More on the design contest awards
Cal Poly Chapter of Engineers Without Borders Receives Two Awards
Five years of working with the residents of a remote village in Thailand on a water filtration system has earned Cal Poly’s student chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) two awards totaling $5,000. Cal Poly received both the EWB-USA West Coast Region Outstanding Chapter Award and the first-place award in the inaugural Tyler Palmer Design Competition at the organization’s regional conference in October.
More on Engineers Without Borders
Graphic Communication Student Takes First in National Poster Contest
Brandon Lutze, a Cal Poly Graphic Communication senior, took first place in the Graphic Arts Education and Research Foundation 2010 Student Design Competition in the Post Secondary category. Lutze and his Cal Poly adviser, professor Lorraine Donegan, received a two-day paid trip to attend GRAPH EXPO 2010 in Chicago. Lutze was presented with a $2,000 check for his poster on the theme of “Rethink Print.”
More on Lutze's win
Top Guns Again: Cal Poly Students Win AIAA Design Competition
For the eighth time in the past nine years, Cal Poly aerospace seniors soared above the competitors at the national Undergraduate Team Aircraft Design competition, taking both first and second places at the contest sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation (AIAA). Designing “Alternate Fuels and Environmentally Friendly Aircraft Systems,” 34 teams from 12 universities competed in the 2010 contest. Cal Poly’s “Much Better Planes Introduces the Bearodactyl” won the $2,500 first place award, while Cal Poly’s “GFX-50” won the $1,500 award for second place.
More on the Cal Poly winners
His Childhood Friends are in Prison, and He's Graduating:
Meet Cal Poly's
2010 Hearst Scholar
Cal Poly architectural engineering student Pablo Ramos, a young father who grew up in Santa Maria, has been named a 2010 Hearst Scholar. Ramos grew up in a single-parent home in a tough part of town. An internship at his community college helped him discover a passion that would propel him to higher education - and Cal Poly. Ramos told the Mustang Daily that many of his childhood friends are now in prison -- and he's on his way to grad school, thanks to Cal Poly.
Read more about Ramos | Read the Mustang Daily interview with Ramos
Cal Poly student Honored for Research at Los Alamos National Laboratory
Cal Poly physics student Dana Duke spent the summer at Los Alamos National Laboratory working on the Neutron Induced Fission Fragment Tracking Experiment (NIFFTE). The experiment will measure the fission probabilities of radioactive isotopes using a detector called a Time Projection Chamber. The experiment should improve current understanding of fission dynamics, and ultimately lead to better efficiency and minimized waste from nuclear reactors at power plants. Duke participated in the assembly and testing of the gas handling system for the detector and helped collect the very first data from the experiment this summer at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center.
Floral Design Team Takes the Gold at National Collegiate Competition
Cal Poly’s floral design team took first place in the Overall School Award at the American Institute of Floral Designers’ (AIFD) 2010 Student Floral Design Competition this summer in Boston. The competition was part of the AIFD 2010 National Symposium. The overall win at nationals was a first for the Cal Poly Floral Design team. Horticulture and Crop Science student Elisabeth Hall won first place in the Wedding Bouquet category. She also took third place in the Overall Contest Winner category, and her teammate Carrie Thengvall took fourth place in the Overall Contest Winner category. Hall, Thengvall and Jaclyn Wiley comprised this year’s floral design team; it was Thengvall and Wiley’s first national competition. As a team, Cal Poly placed in the Top 10 in each of the four categories that were judged. As individuals, each student placed at least once in the top 10.
More on the national win for the Floral Design Team
Cal Poly Students Present to Ricoh Advisory Council on ‘Designing for Digital Color’
Four Cal Poly Graphic Communication students recently conducted a presentation titled “Designing for Digital Color” at a Ricoh Americas Customer Advisory Panel session in Milwaukee. To get there, they competed in a Ricoh campaign involving students in Cal Poly's Production Management for Print and Digital Media classes. The winning team – Kristen Ericksmoen, Jenna Sigler, Heather Blakely and Chelsea Knighton – was flown all expenses paid to Milwaukee in July, where their presentation was beta-tested at Ricoh’s Milwaukee Customer Advisory Session.
More on the presentation
Cal Poly Professor, Grad Student
Preparing Exhibit for The Smithsonian
A Cal Poly professor and grad student part of a team organizing a historic civil rights photography collection for the Smithsonian Institution. Graphic Communication Department, leader Harvey Levenson and student Erin Newman, a history major who has interned in Cal Poly’s Kennedy Library Special Collections and the History Center of San Luis Obispo County, are helping to assess and organize the photos of veteran photographer Joe Schwartz, 97. His works will be archived by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African History and Culture.
More on the project and Cal Poly's involvement
Students Receive National Recognition for Designs
Cal Poly architecture students Dion Dekker and Cody Williams received national recognition for their projects exploring a variety of issues related to the use of steel in design and construction. Dekker was awarded third place in a competition sponsored by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC). His project, titled “Exoskeleton: Reconfiguring Shipping Container Hotel,” was entered in Category II, or open category, which had 168 total entries. Williams received an honorable mention for his design “project Iris,” also in Category II.
More on the ACSA competition
Business Student Entrepreneur's Candy Company Featured on The Food Network
Leah Post gives an interview about her company.
Photo courtesy Brandini Toffee
A Cal Poly business sophomore and her booming gourmet candy company were featured on The Food Network show “Chefs vs. City" in July. Leah Post is heading into her second year of classes at Cal Poly’s Orfalea College Business this fall. She’s already a successful entrepreneur; she and lifelong friend Brandon Weimer (about to be a sophomore at University of Arizona) launched Brandini Toffee, a gourmet candy business, to pay their way on a class trip as 15-year-olds in 2006. Post is now the public relations and marketing face of Brandini, and Weimer the chef and developer of their expanding gourmet product line. It’s not the first national TV appearance for the duo. They appeared on the Martha Stewart Show in 2008 and taught her to make their toffee.
More on Post and her candy business
Agriculture Students Take Top Awards at Dairy Judging in Scotland
Three Cal Poly students earned the top two team and individual awards in an international dairy cattle judging competition in Scotland. Cal Poly Dairy Judging Team members Mandy Brazil, Kelli Carstensen and Sam Cheda traveled to the Royal Highlands Show in Scotland to participate in the invitational competition, held in late June. The three Cal Poly students, along with recent high school graduate Rocco Cunningham, competed under the banner of the Future Farmers of America. In team standings, Brazil and Carstensen placed first and Cunningham and Cheda finished second. In the individual competition, Brazil placed second, Carstensen third, and Cheda 10th.
More on the Highlands Show results
Engineering Students Heading to International Antenna Design Competition
Cal Poly electrical engineering students Alex Hempy and Michael Civerolo are heading to Toronto, Canada, compliments of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers to compete in the first international Antenna Design Challenge in July. In Fall 2009, the duo submitted a proposal to design a wireless demonstration system that teaches antenna principles to high school physics and college engineering students.The system had to be safe, durable, easily reproducible, inexpensive, and portable.
More on the antenna competition
Concrete Canoe Team is No. 1 at Nationals
Cal Poly's Concrete Canoe team took first place in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 23rd annual National Concrete Canoe Competition. Cal Poly hosted the three-day event this year, with final races taking place at Lopez Lake Saturday (June 19). The Cal Poly engineers paddled to victory in a 170-pound, white canoe named the Amazona. The annual competition challenges students to design, create and race canoes made of concrete. Cal Poly battled teams from 21 top engineering schools for the national title.
More on the 2010 Concrete Canoe Competition
Enterprise Team Competes in Nationwide Fair Trade Competition
The Cal Poly Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) club team presented a summary of their 2010 educational outreach projects as part of the National SIFE competition.Named second runner-up in its division at the national competition, the finish ranked them in the top 10 percent of the 600 teams that competed at the regional level.
More on the 2010 SIFE competition
Business, Architecture, Planning, CM Team Takes Silver in Bank of America Housing Challenge
An interdisciplinary team of Cal Poly students took second place in Bank of America’s Low-Income Housing Challenge.
The Cal Poly team partnered with EAH Housing of San Rafael to create a physical and financial proposal for Broadway Village, a 70-unit, multifamily, mixed-use development near downtown Oakland. The project was geared toward larger, low-income families with a minor emphasis on housing individuals with HIV/AIDS. The driving force behind the Broadway Village project was to jump-start the revitalization of the Broadway/Valdez corridor in Oakland. The development was qualified for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certification.
The Cal Poly team included 13 students from six departments: eight students working toward bachelor degrees in Architecture, City and Regional Planning, Construction Management, and Landscape Architecture, as well as five graduate students in Business and City and Regional Planning.
More on the project and short video on the project on the Poly Housing Collaborative website
Student Research on Fish, LEDs, Branding and Online Games Take Top CSU Awards
Cal Poly had four student winners among its 10 entries at the 24th Annual California State University Student Research Competition. The three first-prize winners and one second-prize winner were among some 205 students from 21 campuses who took part in this year’s competition in San Jose earlier this month. The winning student research project topics looked at environmental contamination affecting fish; an identity, branding and marketing launch for a Colorado company; increasing energy efficiency in LED lights; and gender discrimination in online role playing game communities.
More on the student research awards
Cal Poly Architecture Students Win National Design Challenge
Cal Poly Architecture students David Lee and Anthony Stahl were awarded the highest honor at the recent 2010 Mock Firms International Skyscraper Challenge: Collegiate Division sponsored by Chicago Architecture Today. The competition challenged students to conceptualize a residential tall building design for Mexico City. Lee and Stahl’s project, Barrio de los Paracaidistas, translated the traditionalMexican street into an elevated, open-air, high-rise form that redefines the urban condition in Mexico City.
More on the design challenge
Ag Students Take Top Honors at National Career Fair
Cal Poly agriculture students took placed first and second for their public speaking and research skills at the 2010 conference of Minorities in Agriculture Natural Resources and Related Sciences. Michelle Jimenez took first place, and Jacquelynne Garcia took second in the Public Speaking competition portion of the program. Kristina Wolf took home a second-place win in the Oral Undergraduate Research Contest, Division I.
More on the MANRRS competition
Aviation Design Team Flies High in Wichita
Cal Poly's Aviation Design Team took to the skies in Kansas and then took home an award. The students designed and built the aircraft for the competition held over Cessna Field in Wichita, Kansas in April. As part of the competition, the craft flew and carried a variety of payloads, earning fifth place. The event was the 14th annual Cessna/Raytheon Missile Systems Design/Build/Fly (DBF) Competition.
More on the DBF Competition
Cal Poly Dairy Challenge Team Takes Top Award at Nationals
Cal Poly’s dairy team received a “Platinum” first-place award at the 2010 North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge. Thirty teams from U.S. and Canadian universities used classroom and practical training to analyze working dairies. Student teams toured one of four host dairies, interviewed dairy owners and analyzed farm-specific data ranging from finances to herd health. The teams then developed comprehensive dairy management plans and presented their recommendations to herd owners and judges.
More on the Dairy Challenge award
Cal Poly Society of Civil Engineers Wins National Award for Most Outstanding Chapter
For the second year in a row, the American Society of Civil Engineers deemed Cal Poly the winner of the prestigious ASCE Robert Ridgway Award, given to the most outstanding chapter out of the 280 student groups across the country. “It’s a rare feat to win this award two years running,” said Gregg Fiegel, Cal Poly Society of Civil Engineers (SCE) faculty adviser. Other ASCE national awards given to Cal Poly include individual student leadership awards, outstanding faculty adviser award and recognition for community service.
More on the Cal Poly SCE awards
Orfalea Business Students Sell Well at Nationals
Two students from Cal Poly’s Orfalea College of Business, Jason Griego and Allison McCarthy, competed in the National Collegiate Sales Competition (NCSC). The competition placed top sales students in one-on-one, role-playing situations. Recruiters and sales managers from national companies acted as buyers to evaluate each student’s performance. Griego and McCarthy were selected to participate by winning the Orfalea Sales Competition. The competition is part of the Sales Development Program Senior Project led by Marketing Professor Lisa Simon.
More on NCSC students
Mustang Daily Student Newspaper Takes Top Awards - Again
The Mustang Daily was named the College Newspaper of the Year for the second consecutive year at the College Newspapers Business and Advertising Managers (CNBAM) annual convention in Los Angeles. In addition, student Andrew Santos-Johnson, an Art and Design senior, was honored as the Advertising Designer of the Year at the convention, and Erika Powers, an Agriculture Business junior, was named the Advertising Sales Representative of the Year.
More on the Mustang Daily
10 Student Project Finalists Heading for CSU Research Competition
Cal Poly is sending 10 student projects on to the 2010 California State University Student Research Competition Aril 30 and May 1 at San Jose State University. The Cal Poly students' research topics range from branding lily ponds to finding associations between news articles and stock prices to the effects of using recycled water in vegetable irrigation to issues faced by females in computer gaming. A panel of Cal Poly faculty and administrators selected the 10 student finalists from among 23 presentations made on campus.
More on 2010 student research finalists
Construction Management Students Take Top Prizes at Nationals
For the second year in a row, Cal Poly Construction Management student teams received more trophies overall than any other school during the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) National and Regional Student Competitions. The Cal Poly teams placed in multiple categories at the national competition, garnering a first in marine, second in risk management and third in both electrical and building information modeling (BIM). They also earned first places in both the heavy/civil category and the multi-family division at the regional level.
More on Construction Management results
Engineering Students Ready 'Black Widow' Supermileage Racer for Eco-Marathon
The Cal Poly Supermileage Team is fine tuning its famous 'Black Widow' for the Shell Eco-Marathon March 26-28 in Houston, Texas. In 2008, with a whopping 2,752.3 miles per gallon, Cal Poly’s ‘Supermileage’ car finished second place in the competition. In 2007, Cal Poly's "Black Widow" took first place with an impressive 1,902.7 mpg. Cal Poly's College of Engineering has fielded the ultra high-mileage, three-wheeled car nicknamed "The Black Widow" in the Eco-Marathon's student competition since 2005.
More on the 2010 Eco-Marathon Preparations
Ag Communications Student Wins National Debate Competition
Cal Poly Student Olivia Gonzales took first place and a $2,500 scholarship in the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 2010 Collegiate Discussion Meet. Gonzales represented Cal Poly and competed against 37 other college students and recent graduates at the AFBF Young Farmers and Ranchers Leadership Conference in in February in Tulsa, Okla. Gonzales is studying ag communications in addition to running her family’s dry-farmed walnut business in Paso Robles.
More on Gonzales
Cal Poly Receives Top Federal Honor for Student Volunteer Service
Cal Poly has received the highest federal honor that universities can receive for commitment to service learning and civic engagement. Cal Poly was among more than than 700 institutions of higher learning named this week to the 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for exemplary service to America’s communities from the Corporation for National and Community Service. Launched in 2006, the Honor Roll recognizes colleges and universities nationwide that support innovative and effective community service and service-learning programs.
More on Student Volunteer Service
Architecture Student Honored for Design of “Deployable Pod”
Cal Poly Architecture student Cody Williams was selected for the Special Mention: Deployable Pod category in the annual d3 Housing Tomorrow International Architectural Design Competition. Williams, a senior, completed the project as an independent study under the supervision of Professor Thomas Fowler, IV. In addition, Williams’ project will soon be featured in the online magazine "Tuvie: Design of the Future" and was selected by d3 for an exhibition in Monterrey, Mexico.
More on Williams
Architecture Student Receives National Recognition
Cal Poly architecture student John Vierra won first place in the 2009 Bohemian Flats Boathouse Student Design Competition. The competition was sponsored by the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) in conjunction with The Vinyl Institute. Vierra won with the design “Boat on Board.” Judges noted the technical exploration as well as the ingenious way of dealing with the river’s ebb and flow. It was considered one of the most respectful designs with regards to the site and the river. The competition site was The Bohemian Flats, a historic parcel of land on the bank of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.
More on Vierra
Society of Women Engineers Honors Five Outstanding Members
The Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers (SWE), in cooperation with Lockheed Martin, announced the recipients of the 2010 Outstanding Women in Engineering and Technology Award at this year’s “Evening With Industry” held in January at the San Luis Obispo Embassy Suites. In addition, SWE named Lee McFarland from Mechanical Engineering as “Most Supportive Professor” and presented $30,000 in scholarships at the gala.
More on SWE awards
2010 Cal Poly Rose Float a Double Winner
“Jungle Cuts,” the float built by students and volunteers from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and the university’s sister campus in Pomona captured two awards at the 2010 Tournament of Roses Parade, held Jan. 1 in Pasadena, Calif. Parade judges honored the float with the Bob Hope Humor Trophy the day of the parade. And on Jan. 2, the Tournament of Roses and KTLA TV in Los Angeles announced that the Cal Poly creation had once again captured the annual Viewers Choice Award.
More on the 2010 Rose Float