Cal Poly Update
The E-Newsletter for University Friends and Alumni

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Alumni

Second Alumni and Friends Trip to Chianti Added in October
The Cal Poly Alumni Association has added a second trip to Italy's Chianti region, this one scheduled Oct. 22-30. You don't have to be an Alumni Association member to travel! Stay in the beautiful Villa Tavolese of Marcialla villa, visit Pisa, Lucca, San Gimignano, Florence, Siena and more, complete with wine tasting and educational seminars. Cost is $1,995 plus airfare, and includes all accommodations, excursions, meals and more. There is also one remaining opening in the Oct. 1 trip to Tuscany. For more information contact Rosey Parks, Associate Director of Alumni Relations, at rparks@calpoly.edu or (805) 756-2586.

Help Welcome New Cal Poly Students & Parents
You're invited to join alumni in your area in welcoming new Cal Poly freshmen and transfer students and their families at the annual summer picnics Aug. 13 (Aug. 20 in Fresno). Cal Poly Alumni Association chapters all over California, as well as the Boise and Seattle chapters, are hosting New Student Welcome Events. The gatherings offer new Cal Poly students and their parents a great way to learn about Cal Poly and meet fellow students and alumni before leaving home for college.

If you're in Bakersfield, Contra Costa County, Fresno, Monterey, Los Angeles, Marin, Napa, Sonoma, Modesto, Orange County, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, San Luis Obispo, Stockton or Ventura -- there's a new student welcome picnic near you. Come meet other area alums and help new students and parents find out about Cal Poly. Cost is only $8. For event information, locations and details see:
http://alumni.calpoly.edu/events/nswe_brochure.pdf
http://alumni.calpoly.edu/events/nswe_form.pdf

Engineering grad Roger Marshutz served in Korea after graduating in 1952, taking photos to document the U.S. reconstruction effort there. Nearly 50 years later, his collection of photos is on exhibit through September at Harvard. Marshutz donated more than 3,000 black-and-white negatives and 120 color slides to Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Homecoming Update: Graphic Communications Grads Gathering Oct. 6, 7
Graduates from Cal Poly's Printing and Graphic Communications Department are getting a head start on Homecoming. The department is holding its "Reunion of the Decades" Friday, Oct. 6 and Saturday, Oct. 7, in San Luis Obispo. Grads from the past 60 years are invited and plenty are expected to attend. Homecoming 2006 is set for Oct. 20-22. This year's 50th Reunion Celebration is a special one. In the class of 2006, women returned to campus for the first time in decades -- and Cal Poly went co-ed. Grads of all decades past are invited to come to campus for Homecoming 2006 and celebrate!
Click here for details on the Graphics Gathering
Homecoming is Oct. 20-22. Watch the Homecoming Web site for Details

University News

Cal Poly Receives $1.8 Million Grant for Research Park
The Economic Development Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, has announced a $1.8 million grant to begin construction of the first building in a new technology park on campus. A project of the university and the California Central Coast Research Partnership (C3RP), the Cal Poly Technology Park will house technology-based businesses—particularly firms engaged in applied research and development. The park will increase collaboration between Cal Poly and industry and enhance the ability of park tenants to draw from the expertise of Cal Poly faculty and students. It is expected to create 380 jobs and generate $115 million in private investment.
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Cal Poly Makes EPA’s List of Best Workplaces for Commuters
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ranks Cal Poly among the best workplaces in the nation for commuters. The EPA released the list of the nation’s Best Workplaces for Commuters from colleges and universities May 22. Cal Poly was one of the 72 schools from across the country honored as environmental leaders for improving air quality, saving energy and reducing traffic congestion in their communities.
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'Organ Donors' Aid Performing Arts Center
Sixty-seven volunteers of all ages from around the county came to help unload the new CB FISK Opus 129 pipe organ for the Performing Arts Center on the Cal Poly campus. On hand were donors Bert and Candace Forbes, whose generous gift funded the three-story, 129-pipe instrument that will take technicians nine months to install and "voice." Linda Wilson, president of the Foundation for the Performing Arts Center, and Cal Poly President Warren J. Baker were on hand to take delivery of the instrument. A debut concert featuring the new organ will be scheduled sometime next spring.
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Today's Students

Ben Londo is Top College Cowboy at National Rodeo Championships
Cal Poly junior Ben Londo won his second consecutive Men's All-Around title at the 2006 College National Finals Rodeo in June in Casper, Wyo. Londo, a construction management major from Milton Freewater, Ore., finished second overall in saddle bronc riding (fourth in the first go-round and second in the final go-round). In bareback riding, he finished second in the second go-round, ending the competition with 220 points and the Men's All-Around title.
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Cal Poly Takes Silver
in Concrete Canoe Competition
Cal Poly beat Clemson, UC Berkeley, Michigan Tech and others to take the silver medal in the annual Concrete Canoe Competition sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers June 17 in Stillwater, Okla. Only the University of Wisconsin-Madison team was able to best Cal Poly in a series of events judging entry aesthetics, swamping propensities, team presentations, and the ultimate event: the concrete canoe race. Some 400 students from 23 universities competed.
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Environmental Engineering Team
Takes Second in Water Treatment Contest
How to make 10 gallons of wastewater drinkable without using chemicals, electricity or fuel-powered equipment was the challenge a team of Cal Poly engineering students tackled to earn second place in a national competition. Cal Poly's Society of Environmental Engineers took the silver for their solution in the “Water Treatment from Your Kitchen...and Beyond” competition sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers, held recently at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.
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Photo Slideshows: Commencement 2006
More than 3,700 students are set to graduate in seven separate ceremonies at Cal Poly’s Spring Commencement ceremonies Saturday and Sunday June 10 and 11. Commencement speakers included best selling mystery author (and alumna) Nevada Barr, Jeet Bindra, Chevron's president of global refining, and Kara Blakeslee, a trustee of the American Land Conservancy. Ongoing construction at the Alex G. Spanos Stadium is the reason for the multiple commencement ceremonies.
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Student Wins National Landscape Architecture Scholarship
Cal Poly landscape architecture student Sahoko Yui was awarded this year’s American Society of Landscape Architecture Council of Fellows’ scholarship for promising students of landscape architecture. Yui will receive $4,000, a one-year student ASLA membership, general registration fees for the ASLA annual meeting in Minneapolis this October, and a travel stipend to attend the meeting, where she will formally receive her award. Yui was one of only two students in the United States to receive the award this year.
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Cal Poly's Great Grads of 2006
Cal Poly's class of 2006 included some 3,700 graduates. All of them are exceptional. Many of them overcame obstacles on their way to a diploma. Meet Mariam Khan, Sonnia Nteso, Molly Lewis, Kenny Sharma and Danielle Burchett -- a few “great grads” from the class of 2006.
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Read the Tribune story on four of the grads

Faculty & Staff

English Professor Answers a Higher Calling -- Enters the Priesthood
Longtime English professor Ken Brown is still quoting Robert Frost, but to a different audience. Brown was ordained in June as a Roman Catholic priest in a ceremony at Mission San Luis Obispo. The 56-year-old has no regrets about his decision. "This is about stepping out," said Brown, part of a wave of older, educated men entering the priesthood after full careers. "It’s like jumping out of a plane. Faith gives you the courage to do that."
Read the story in the SLO Tribune

The Naked, the Nude and the Photography Professor
Cal Poly Photography Professor Sky Bergman talked to the San Luis Obispo Tribune recently about her photography, her book "The Naked & the Nude" and her transition from film to digital art. Bergman said the goal of her book was to juxtapose ideal bodies captured in classic sculpture with real ones. "I kind of felt these were so pure and so beautiful that I wanted to photograph real women," she said.
Read the full Tribune article

Professor's French Horn 'Decathlon' Premieres in Australia
Cal Poly Music Professor Craig Russell's "Rhapsody for Horn and Orchestra," featuring an innovative combination of classical, jazz and Latin sounds, had its premiere in Australia, when the San Luis Obispo Symphony toured there in late June. Another Russell composition, "Gate City: A Prayer for Peace," was performed only at the Sydney Opera Hall. French horn player Richard Todd performed "Rhapsody," which offers horn players an opportunity to lead the music and play sounds not typically written for them. "You can go really high and really low," Russell said. "I like to compare it to a decathlon. Normally, the horn gets to compete in a couple of events. Here you get to compete in all 10 events."
Read the full Tribune article

Coming Up

PAC Hosts Opening Concert
of Mozart Festival July 14
The 36th Annual Mozart Festival begins with a concert at 8 p.m. in Harman Hall in the Christopher Cohan Center, with Scott Yoo, conductor, and Vladimir Feltsman, piano. The concert will feature Beethoven's "Overture to Corolianus," Mozart's "Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major," and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in D minor. For tickets and details visit www.mozartfestival.com or call (805) 781-3008 to request a free brochure.
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Free Mozart Fest Concert July 15 in Music Building
The Mozart Festival will present a free concert by the Shostakovich 8th Quartet Saturday, July 15th, at 11 a.m. in the Cal Poly Music Bldg, room 218. Dedicated "in memory of the victims of fascism and war," this quartet is a musical retrospective of Shostakovich’s damaged life and career, due to his refusal to join the Communist Party. Scott Yoo and Festival musicians lead an exploration of this personal statement on political consequences.
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'Grease' is the Word July 15 - 22 at the Spanos Theatre
"Grease," the musical, plays July 15, 16, 21 and 22 in the Spanos Theatre, complete with well-greased coifs and side-burns and an abundance of jukebox jingles and bobby socks. Grease is packed with explosive energy, vibrant 1950's pop culture and all those unforgettable songs, including "Summer Nights," "Greased Lightnin'," "Beauty School Dropout," "We Go Together" and many more! Join those groovy Burger Palace Boys, sassy Pink Ladies and the whole gang at Rydell High for this high octane Rock-n-Roll party.
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A Blend of Classical, Jazz
and Tango in Free Concert July 17
The group 3 Leg Torso will play a free concert beginning at 11 a.m. Monday, July 17, in the Cal Poly Music Building, room 218, Presented by the Mozart Festival. Join the members of 3 Leg Torso for a lively discussion/demonstration of their artistic process -- crossing the boundaries between classical, jazz and tango and connecting the Old World and the New. For tickets and details, visit www.mozartfestival.com.
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Performing Arts Center
10-Year Anniversary Gala Celebration is Aug. 26
The Performing Arts Center’s 10th Anniversary celebration is set for Saturday, Aug. 26, in the style of the original "Hard Hat Ball" of 1996. Multiple bands and mouth-watering delicacies from some of the Central Coast's finest restaurants will again grace the Christopher Cohan Center for an evening of fun. Mark the date on your calendar and watch for more details as they develop.
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