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Coming
Up
Gauchos,
Mustangs in Benefit Game
for Injured '80s Volleyball Star Saturday
The
Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara volleyball teams will
play an exhibition women's volleyball match on Saturday,
May 13
to benefit former Cal Poly volleyball great Carol
Tschasar-Daniel, seriously injured a month ago. First
serve is set for 4 p.m. May 13 in Mott Gym. Daniel
was injured on April 8 by a hit-and-run driver while
jogging with friends along Pacific Coast Highway in
Dana Point. Her injuries include a broken neck, pelvis
and a nearly-severed leg. Admission to the match is
free, with donations being accepted. A raffle will
be conducted throughout the match with proceeds going
to the Carol Daniel Benevolent Fund to help offset
medical costs.
More on the benefit
game
Got
Golf? Get out and Play to Benefit Student Scholarships
Break out the clubs, golf fans: summer is just around
the corner and it's already golf season for the Cal
Poly Alumni Association. Chapters all over the state
are sponsoring scholarship benefit tournaments throughout
the summer, starting this Friday, May 12,
in Tulare with the Rita B. Hill Memorial Golf Tournament.
The event raises money for Cal Poly scholarships for
students from the Central Valley. All of the tournaments
are a good way to reconnect with other alumni, and
play a little golf at the same time. Not into golf?
Most also include a lunch, dinner or barbecue -- and
who's not into barbecue? the Graphic Communication
Alumni Chapter is holding its tournament Saturday,
May 20 at the Hunter Ranch Golf Course in
Paso Robles. The Northern California Tournament is
an annual event that's raised $39,000 for scholarships
so far; it's set for Saturday, June 24.
The Modesto Chapter tourney is set for Friday,
July 14 in Turlock.
Click
Here for more golf details in the CPAA Summer Events
Calendar
Alumni
In the News:
From 'Oklahoma!' to Ultimate Fighting
Cal Poly Alums continue to make headlines everywhere.
Read about who was named to the National Academy of
Sciences, who's moving up in the worlds of business
and journalism, and who switched from the mild-mannered
realm of accounting to the sweaty world of ultimate
cage fighting -- and is loving it.
Click
Here for more on Alumni in the News
University
News
Human
Powered Vehicle Challenge Comes to Campus
Cal
Poly hosted the Human Powered Vehicle Challenge West
Coast Competition in April. The event was sponsored
by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and
hosted by the Cal Poly Human Powered Vehicle Club.
ASME sponsors the competition in hopes of finding
a design that can be used for everyday activities.
Cal Poly is one of only three schools that have raced
in every ASME competition. Cal Poly has been and remains
one of the top contenders in the collegiate races,
placing in the top four spots for both the sprints
and the endurance race in four of the last five years.
More
New Center for Construction Excellence
Breaks Ground
The
College of Architecture and Environmental Design held
a gala groundbreaking celebration for the new Center
for Construction Excellence on Saturday and Sunday,
May 6-7. The 58,000-square-foot center will house
lecture space, labs, classrooms and office space,
and will cost an estimated $21.3 million to build.
State bonds and private donations have added up to
about $20 million, and an alumni campaign to raise
the remaining $1 million is underway. Private contributors
to the new building include Simpson Strong-Tie and
Pulte Homes and CAED alums Rob Rossi and Nicholas
Watry. The new building is rising
on the site of the old heating and air conditioning
building just downhill from the Graphic Communications
Building.
Read
the Mustang Daily Story on the groundbreaking
Click
Here to go to the Construction Management Department
Web page on the building
University
Hosts
CubeSat Developers’ Workshop
Students,
faculty and space industry representatives from around
the world came to see the latest developments in small
satellite technology at Cal Poly in April, during
a three-day CubeSat Workshop. The Cal Poly CubeSat
Project started in 1999 as a collaborative effort
between Cal Poly and Stanford University’s Space
Systems Development Laboratory to provide standards
for the design of picosatellites. As a result, the
very small satellites are being built by students
at universities around the world. Picosatellites,
or CubeSats, are launched using a common deployer
known as a “P-POD,” developed at Cal Poly.
More
Cal
Poly Joins National University Ecosystem Research
Consortium
Cal
Poly has been admitted to a national network of universities
that are partnering with federal agencies to promote
education and research in the management of natural
and cultural resources. The Californian Cooperative
Ecosystem Studies Unit, part of the national CESU
network, recently welcomed Cal Poly and two other
CSU campuses (Humboldt and Chico) to the consortium.
The California CESU includes all nine University of
California campuses and is housed on the Berkeley
campus.
More
Spanos
Stadium Receives Financial Support from Standout Players
Four
star football players with outstanding records at
Cal Poly are making generous contributions toward
completion of Alex G. Spanos Stadium, and they hope
others will do the same. Current student Chris Gocong,
drafted this month to play for the Philadelphia Eagles,
and three former Mustang football standouts are donating
money to the university’s stadium project --
now underway on campus. Joining Gocong are Jordan
Beck, drafted last year by the Atlanta Falcons, David
“Doc” Richardson of the Jacksonville Jaguars
and Isaac Dixon, who works at Wells Fargo Financial.
All are former Mustang team captains, and all say
their gifts are an effort to pay back the university
for the chance at success they were given on and off
the field.
More
Lau
Family Gives $1 Million to Animal Science Department
A
Modesto couple has given Cal Poly $1 million toward
the building of the Animal Science Department's new
meat processing center. John and Gay Lau, owners of
the family-operated Yosemite Meat Company in Modesto,
made the donation this month. The Laus are parents
of two Cal Poly alumni of the College of Agriculture.
The 13,000 square-foot meat processing center is expected
to cost a little over $4 million and is scheduled
to begin construction this year on the west end of
the university's agricultural lands, off Stenner Creek
Road. Look for details about new Animal Science facilities
in the summer edition of Cal Poly Magazine, scheduled
to arrive in June.
More
Today's
Students
Mustang
Makes History
Gocong Drafted to NFL's Philly Eagles
For
the second straight year, a Cal Poly football player
has been selected in the third round of the National
Football League Draft. Senior defensive end Chris
Gocong became Cal Poly's highest draft choice ever,
chosen in the third round with the 71st pick overall
by the Philadelphia Eagles. Former Mustang linebacker
Jordan Beck was drafted in the third round, the 90th
selection overall, by the Atlanta Falcons a year ago.
Gocong, who like Beck earned the Buck Buchanan Award
as the nation’s Division I-AA defensive player
of the year, was projected as high as the second round
by draft prognosticators, including ESPN columnist
Mel Kiper Jr.
More
Read
the Tribune story on Gocong
Business
Students Earn Third Straight SIFE Regional Champion
Title
The Orfalea College of Business's chapter of Students
in Free Enterprise (SIFE) earned a Regional Champion
title for the third straight year. The club also won
five special topic awards at the regional SIFE conference
in Long Beach.The team beat competitors from Cal State
Bakersfield, University of Arizona , Pepperdine University
and others and is headed to the 2006 SIFE U.S.A. National
Exposition, May 21-23, in Kansas City, Missouri.
More
Business
Students Take First Place
in Collegiate Sales Competition
Two
Orfalea College of Business students took first place
at the Second Annual California Collegiate Sales Competition
at CSU Sacramento in April. James Manley of San Jose
and Lauren Ralyea of Alamo competed with 17 other
students from seven universities to sell ADP Payroll
Services and Federated Insurance to business sponsors
in videotaped role-playing scenarios.
More
More
than 500 Students to Participate in Greek Day of Service
More
than 500 members of the Cal Poly Greek Life Program
took part in the 2006 Greek Day of
Service on Sunday, April 23. The annual event is one
of the largest student service programs on the Cal
Poly campus. Students from more than 20 different
fraternities and sororities volunteered throughout
the community of San Luis Obispo to work at more than
15 different sites. All together, the Cal Poly Greek
students worked more than 2,000 hours of community
service in one day. Roughly 10 percent of Cal Poly
students belong to a fraternity or sorority.
More
Faculty
& Staff
Music
Professor Craig Russell
Earns High Marks at Disney Concert Hall
Music Professor Craig Russell earned high marks recently
from Los Angeles music critics for a concert he helped
create at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. At the concert,
the Los Angeles Master Chorale performed early Latin
American music discovered and reconstructed by Russell,
a renowned expert on Baroque and early California
music. Russell also performed on the Baroque guitar
with the accompanying orchestra, Musica Angelica,
which, he calls “the best period-instrument
orchestra in Southern California.” Much of the
music was the direct result of Russell’s investigative
work in colonial archives and in his reconstruction
of these works.
More
Engineering
Professor Taufik Named Outstanding Advisor
Cal Poly’s Academic Advising Council has named
Electrical Engineering Assistant Professor Taufik
the 2005-06 Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award winner.
(Professor Taufik uses one name only.) The Outstanding
Faculty Advisor Award was created to recognize outstanding
achievement by a faculty member in the area of student
advising.
More
Biology
Professor Publishes Book on SLO Plants
"The
Plants of San Luis Obispo: Their Lives and Stories,"
a new book by Matt Ritter, director of the Cal Poly
plant conservatory at Cal Poly, examines the natural
landscape. Each entry gives the plant’s common
and botanical names and a bit of history or plant
lore, with color photos. Over 150 full-color pages
describe the habitat, botany, ecology, edible or medicinal
properties, uses by Native Americans, entomology,
and gardening uses of more than 200 plants. The book
is available at a number of bookstores, including
El Corral. For more information, visit http://www.elcorralbookstore.com/,
click on the "Books" tab at the top, then
the "Cal Poly Authors" link on the left.
Read
the Tribune review of the book
Professor to Chair International Business Congress
in Sarajevo in June
Cal
Poly Orfalea College of Business professor Bill Pendergast
will chair an international business congress in Sarajevo
in June. Pendergast has been on leave since January
2005 to help launch the first internationally accredited
MBA program in the western Balkan region. The International
Management Development Association holds its World
Business Congress each year in a different
country. This year's Congress is expected to draw
150 participants from 40 countries to Sarajevo.
More
Coming
Up
Madcap
British Comedy Runs though May
Cal
Poly’s Theatre and Dance Department will present
Joe Orton’s comedy “What the Butler Saw”
at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, May 11-13 and
May 17-20, and at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 20, at the
Spanos Theatre on campus. The play follows a psychiatrist’s
desperate cover-up of his attempt at an extra-marital
affair, which turns the hallowed halls of a state
mental clinic into a madcap, farcical blitzkrieg of
sexual misadventure.
More
Oracle
Chairman to Speak at Cal Poly May 16
Cal Poly's Orfalea College of Business will host Jeff
Henley, chairman of the board of directors of Oracle
Corp. in the fourth installment of its Distinguished
Speaker Series. The event, scheduled for Tuesday,
May 16, at 2:30 p.m. in the Spanos Theatre, is free
and open to the public. A public reception follows
in the lobby. Henley will present “Collaborate
to Innovate – Critical Skills and Technologies
for Tomorrow's Global Leaders.” He was Oracle's
chief financial officer and an executive vice president
from 1991 to 2004. He has been a member of Oracle's
board of directors since June 1995, and he serves
on Oracle's Executive Management Committee.
More
Colloquium Looks at Death, Evolution and more May
18-19
Internationally renowned philosopher John Martin Fischer
will deliver the keynote address at the seventh annual
Spring Philosophy Colloquium, set for Thursday and
Friday, May 18-19 on campus. Fischer, from UC Riverside,
will speak on “Death and Immortality”
at 7 p.m. May 18 in the BioResource and Agriculture
Building, Room 123. Fischer is the author of “The
Metaphysics of Free Will” and co-author of “Responsibility
and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility.”
He has also written numerous articles about ethics,
the metaphysics of free will and moral responsibility,
and the metaphysics of death and immortality.
More
Cal
Poly Symphony Presents 'Planets and Sea' Sunday, May
21
The Cal Poly Symphony Spring Concert, "The Planets
and the Sea," is set for Sunday, May 21, with
showtime at 3 p.m. in the Christopher Cohan Center.
The Cal Poly Symphony will be joined by acclaimed
mezzo-soprano Jacalyn Kreitzer in its final concert
of the season. Come experience two British masterpieces
written near the turn of the 20th century: Edward
Elgar's "Sea Pictures," for orchestra and
voice, and Gustav Holst's "The Planets,"
an astrological exploration of the human soul, scored
brilliantly for large orchestra.
More
Cal
Poly Architecture Students to Exhibit Thesis Designs
May 26-28
Cal
Poly fifth-year architecture students will exhibit
their design-studio thesis work on campus during “Coalesce,”
one of the largest architecture and design exhibitions
between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The exhibit
begins Friday, May 26, with an opening reception from
3 to 6 p.m. in Chumash Auditorium in the University
Union. It continues over Memorial Day weekend, May
27-28, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday. The event is free and
open to the public.
More
Cal
Poly Music Department Spring Concert is May 27 in
Cohan Center
"Close
Your Eyes and See Dancers" is the title of the
Cal Poly Music Department Spring Concert Saturday,
May 27, at 8 p.m. in the Christopher Cohan Center.
The University Singers and the Wind Orchestra will
join forces in a concert of enchanting music for choir
and wind band. Both groups will perform works that
have been inspired by the performing art of dancing
from many ages, styles and nationalities. Listeners
will be swept away by such works as "Bandancing"
by Jack Stamp, "Dance Movements" by Philip
Sparke, selections from "Riverdance," "The
Solitary Dancer" by Warren Benson, "Armenian
Dances" by Alfred Reed, "Dance of the Jesters"
by Peter Tchaikovsky, "Danza Final" by Alberto
Ginastera and much more. Co-sponsored by the College
of Liberal Arts and Instructionally Related Activities.
Tickets ($15 & $18 general/$13 & $15 seniors/$8
students).
More
Taste the Future June 1
Cal
Poly’s Sustainable Agriculture Resource Consortium
is planning its second annual fund-raising dinner,
“Tastes of the Future, with Roots in the Past,”
on Thursday, June 1. Renowned farmer, author and photographer
Michael Ableman will be the speaker and guest of honor
at the family-style dinner, which will feature sustainably
raised ingredients prepared by some of the Central
Coast’s finest chefs. The dinner will be at
6:30 p.m. at Rancho Arroyo Grande Winery and Vineyards
in Arroyo Grande.
More
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