Michael Vineyard, the new chair of
physics, said it simply after getting an email from a student who attended a
recent open house at the department: “Here's a request I haven't gotten before.”
“My grandmother has always been
interested in quantum physics,” the prospective student wrote. “She's done a lot of self study and knows the location of all the particle accelerators in the
world. Her 76th birthday is this coming Saturday and I was wondering if it
would be possible if you could show her the lab at Union. This would mean so much to her and would be an amazing birthday present.”
And from Dean of Arts and Sciences
Charlotte Borst, tasked with allocating valuable lab space: “Who says that our
science facilities don't have widespread appeal?”
Vineyard couldn't arrange to show
the accelerator this Saturday, but said “I would be happy to sometime next
week.”
An essay by Admissions VP Dan Lundquist that calls for a re-evaluation of the admissions process has struck a chord with prospective students, their families and high school counselors.
“Competitive admissions'
elusiveness – its lack of predictability and apparent lack of fairness – seems
only to fuel public frustration and fascination, and set up a results-oriented
approach to college admissions that threatens to displace thoughtful
self-analysis and the search for the most appropriate college environment for
the student,” Lundquist writes in an essay prepared for The Best of Our Knowledge, a show that airs on public radio stations nationwide.
“Environmental pressures have been
mounting over the past few years that show signs the college admissions process is
becoming a transaction – an episode to get through quickly – and that
expediency is trumping honesty and authenticity. Fueled by the frantic inertia
of high aspirations in an increasingly-competitive college market, the
proliferation of services that help package an application are cause-and-effect
evidence that the “package” is more important than its contents –
with the cynical implication that admissions committees reward style over
substance.
“The most important way coin-of-realm
colleges could ante up to show their desire to see values reign over expediency
would be to abolish what appear to be complicated sets of admissions options
and an over-reliance on standardized tests.
“The debate of so-called Early
Decision is a case in point: Many high school counselors and teachers feel that
students, as impressionable and malleable as teenagers are, need the extra few
months to make a right decision. From a qualitative point of view, protracting
the search process, “playing the field” – and all that it can entail
– only produces benefits: more options, greater maturity and self-awareness,
and improved focus on senior year studies. And from a symbolic point of view
colleges´ willingness to give up an institutional advantage could, in one
stroke, both set a good example and help level the playing field.
“So let's eliminate constraining
application plans and give students – all students – equal time to experience
and consider the college search process. At the same time, admissions
committees might pledge to let scores inform, rather than drive, the selection
process.
“And in return, could we turn the
clock back on college rankings? With metrics that imply an impossible
precision, let's do away with college rankings just as students would have us
do away with high school class ranking. This might compel students to examine
potential colleges as carefully as they, themselves, would wish to be evaluated
by admissions committees.”
Aerogel team members, from left, Matthew King '03, Smitesh Bakrania '03 and Prof. Ann Anderson
Faculty and students attribute their recent success in the aerogel lab to a combination of hard work and an inventory problem at a local auto parts store.
“We have tried to be systematic but our latest breakthrough was more serendipitous than anything else,” said Prof. Ann Anderson of mechanical engineering about the discovery that using a thicker rubber gasket yields a quality aerogel in five hours. The old way took about 12 hours.
It turns out the thicker gasket was more compliant, Anderson said. It more evenly distributes the pressure and forms a better seal, making a higher quality aerogel in is less time.
Anderson joins her colleague, Richard Wilk and chemists Mary Carroll and Michael Hagerman, and a team of students on a project that is supported by a grant of $250,000 from the National Science Foundation. The faculty members are assisted by mechanical engineering seniors Smitesh Bakrania and Matthew King, and chemistry senior Rebecca Wolfe. Bakrania and Wolfe are making aerogels the subject of their senior theses.
Samples of aerogels
The team is producing aerogels in a hydraulic, heated press where they combine a mixture tetramethylorthosilicate, a catalyst, methanol and water. The mixture gels and the “wet” gel is then brought to a “supercritical” phase in which there is no surface tension between the liquids and solids. At that point, the wet gel can be dried without degrading the solid matrix inherent in that form of aerogel.
Aerogels are ultra-light matrix materials that are excellent insulators. The challenge for the researchers is to devise a manufacturing method that will make production of the material more cost effective. Current applications are limited mostly to the space program, where aerogels have been used as an insulator on the Mars rover and to collect comet dust.
The aerogel manufacturing lab had its beginning last year when Anderson and a former student, Ben Gauthier '02 (now at Stanford), began experimenting with the process. Before long, they were consulting with faculty in chemistry for help understanding the chemical processes involved.
The aerogel team meets weekly to discuss their progress. They are also finalizing plans for a new lab made possible by the NSF grant. They expect it to be fully operational in December, Anderson said.
The research is proceeding in two phases, the first focusing on finding improvements in the manufacturing process. The second phase – and the subject of Bakrania's and Wolfe's theses – will be characterizing the properties of the aerogels produced.
The team has applied for a patent on a process they call a “Fast Supercritical Extraction Technique for Simplified Aerogel Fabrication.”
What's the “Big Deal” when it comes to the annual football battle between Union and Rensselaer for the Dutchman Shoes Trophy? Issue number four of
“Headliners” showed how much the area media thought of the game, now take a look and feel the emotion and pride that took place on Frank Bailey Field after the Dutchmen “brought The Shoes” home. Pictures don't lie…at least these don't!!
UCAA honor roll recipients over the past two weeks were senior tailback George Beebe for his 158 rushing yards (out of Union's total of 178) against Rensselaer and sophomore placekicker Cliff Eisenhut, for his four field goals (out of four attempts) against Rensselaer.
