Please join me in congratulating our colleagues, Professor Andrew Blaustein and Professor Stephen Giovannoni for being selected as Oregon State University’s 2012 Distinguished Professors.  The Distinguished Professor award has been presented annually since 1988 to outstanding active OSU faculty members who have achieved national and/or international stature as a result of their contributions to scholarship/creative activity, research, education, and service, and whose work has been notably influential in their fields of specialization.

Stephen Giovannoni is a microbiologist and international leader in the study of marine microbes through advanced molecular techniques, and Andrew Blaustein is a zoologist who studies animal behavior and conservation biology, and one of the world’s leading experts on biodiversity and amphibian declines.  These two OSU scientists have received millions of dollars in grants supporting their research from the National Science Foundation and other agencies, produced scores of professional publications in leading journals, and received numerous other awards for both their teaching and research.

We hope you will join us on Wednesday, May 9^th for lectures by both of this year’s Distinguished Professors.

May 9, 2012

10:30AM -11:45AM – lecture by Stephen Giovannoni

2:00PM – 3:15PM – lecture by Andrew Blaustein

CH2M Hill Alumni Center

Willamette Room

These lectures are a part of the Recognizing Excellence events planned in May. To learn more about the other events, visit http://oregonstate.edu/urm/events/recognizing-excellence.

Again, congratulations to Professors Blaustein and Giovannoni!

Sabah Randhawa

Provost and Executive Vice President

Research Higher Degree Scholarship

The Quinn group (www.researcherid.com/rid/A-7931-2008) is working towards new therapies for infectious diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis.

We are seeking applications from prospective PhD students to work in a drug discovery project in infectious disease supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Australian Research Council (ARC Linkage). This project is your chance to make a difference in the global fight against infectious disease like malaria and tuberculosis.

This project aims to synthesis fragments derived from part structures of natural products. This will include molecular modeling and chemoinformatics to identify fragment-sized portions of natural products that can be added to the library to expand the upper limit of accessible fragment diversity and in silico analysis of natural product diversity space to generate a minimum set of fragments. Newly synthesized compounds will be tested against tuberculosis and malaria proteins using FTMS.

Scholarship value and duration

The scholarship is valued AUD$27,651 per annum for three years plus relocation and thesis allowances.

Eligibility

Candidates should hold a First-Class Honors degree or equivalent in a relevant discipline.

For more information, please contact:

Professor Ronald J Quinn AM FTSE

r.quinn@griffith.edu.au

www.griffith.edu.au/eskitis

Prof. Stephanie Brock of Wayne State University will be presenting a seminar entitled “The Role of Synthetic Levers for Control of Phase, Size and Morphology in Nanoscale Transition Metal Pnictides: Consequences for Catalytic and Magnetic Properties,” on Thursday, May 10, 2012 in Covell Hall room 117 from 3-4pm.

Brock Seminar Flyer & Bio

As you know, First Lady Michelle Obama will provide the commencement address at Oregon State University’s 2012 commencement ceremony on Sunday, June 17. We are excited to have the First Lady join us for this year’s commencement.

The logistics for this year’s commencement are going to be more complicated. Over the next few weeks, we will be working with the White House and other relevant agencies to plan the event. In the meantime, I want to share with you some key elements of the planning process as it pertains to faculty and staff participation in this year’s commencement.

The anticipated start time for the event (time when the first graduates enter Reser stadium) on June 17 is 3:30 p.m. We expect 3,500 to 4,000 students to participate and about 35,000 guests to attend the ceremony.

The 2012 graduation will be a ticketed event. As in previous commencements, faculty may participate in the 2012 commencement ceremony by volunteering as an escort, representative, or marshal.  Faculty who wish to participate in one of the following roles must register in advance.

• Faculty Escorts who wish to accompany doctoral candidates will receive a memo from the Graduate School toward the end of May.

• As Faculty Representatives, faculty will dress in academic regalia and participate in the processional across campus and into Reser Stadium where they will be seated as a group for the ceremony. There will be limited number of seats available on the stadium floor for Faculty Representatives; specific information regarding volunteering to be a faculty representative will be distributed toward the end of April.

• Faculty members are encouraged to serve as Marshals. We are anticipating the need for almost twice as many marshals as in the past. Chris Bell, Chief Marshal, will work with each college to staff marshals.

This year we have an increased need for OSU staff volunteers.  Staff who would like to volunteer greeting guests, distributing programs, assisting guests in locating a seat, etc. will need to complete the registration form found on the commencement webpage.  Once commencement begins, volunteers in all capacities are welcome to attend the ceremony.

Tickets: After accommodating family and friends of our graduates, we anticipate to have a limited number of admission tickets (no charge but this is a ticketed event) available in the general audience for faculty and staff. Information regarding ticket availability will be made available to the colleges following the graduation application deadline of May 25^th.

I would appreciate if you can encourage your students who are prospective graduates to visit the Commencement webpage http://oregonstate.edu/commencement for information on the commencement ceremony. If students have questions about graduation requirements and deadlines, please encourage them to contact their advisers and the OSU Registrar’s Office. We will provide additional information regarding the commencement ceremony as it becomes available through the commencement website and at the May Faculty Senate meeting.

I want to thank you for all you do for OSU and its students, and wish you an enjoyable and productive Spring quarter.

Sabah Randhawa

Provost and Executive Vice President

We would like to invite graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in your department to apply to the 2012 Green Chemistry Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) held in Lucca (Barga), Italy on July 21-22, 2012. The GRS immediately precedes the 2012 Green Chemistry Gordon Research Conference (GRC) held July 22-27 at the same location. Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers attending the GRS generally participate in the GRC as well.

We are very excited to announce a recent NSF award to offset travel and registration costs for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from US institutions. Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from US institutions who participate in both the Green Chemistry GRS and GRC will automatically be considered for travel and/or registration scholarships. Please note that individuals who receive this funding must arrange their travel in accordance with the Fly America Act.

The 2012 Green Chemistry GRS will feature keynote speakers Martyn Poliakoff (Nottingham) and Paul Anastas (Yale), a career panel, poster sessions, and a selection of talks by students and postdoctoral researchers. The schedule for the GRC is available at http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2012&program=greenchem .

Please share this message with your department and encourage any interested students and postdoctoral researchers to apply. The application for the GRS is available online at http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2012&program=grs_green . Applicants who are interested in giving a talk or serving as a discussion leader should apply as soon as possible since those roles will be filled within the next two weeks. Space permitting, applications for poster presentations at the GRS and GRC will be accepted until June 23.

Thank you for your time. We look forward to meeting your students and postdoctoral researchers at the GRS this summer!

Sincerely,

Harriet Scott
Chair
pcxhs2@nottingham.ac.uk

Margaret Scheuermann
Associate Chair
mls36@uw.edu

New! Opportunity for Undergraduates: Undergraduate Research, Innovation, Scholarship and Creativity (URISC): Start. This program is limited to OSU freshman, sophomores and recent transfer students. Applications are being accepted for Summer term 2012. Deadline: April 16. Guidelines and application: http://oregonstate.edu/research/incentive/urisc-start. Information: Debbie Delmore at debbie.delmore@oregonstate.edu.

April 24, 2012

10:00 am – 3:00 pm

LaSells Stewart Center

The suture clinic is coming once again to the Health Professions Career Fair.  The clinic will be conducted at 1 pm at the LaSells Stewart Center and hosted by Kaplan and the medical students at Western University – Lebanon branch.  The clinic will be limited to 40 students where 25 can pre-register through a doodle poll http://www.doodle.com/ztnwumb3x774i2uc.  The last 15 spots are saved for walk-ins on the day of the fair and student can register at the Kaplan table.

In addition, we have door prizes this year to include gift certificates to the book store; all you need to do is come to the Fair and talk to some of the school representatives awaiting your inquiries.  Information about attending schools can be found at http://www.science.oregonstate.edu/node/165.  Student information can be found at http://www.science.oregonstate.edu/node/164.

Students with questions can contact me directly.

Ariella C. Wolf

College of Science Advisor

Oregon State University

128 Kidder Hall

Corvallis, OR 97333

541.737.4811

Please note my office hours:

Monday to Thursday

8:00 am – 1 pm

**LOCATION CHANGED TO KIDDER 202**

Michelle Kutzler, Chair of the Faculty Senate Promotion and Tenure Committee, and I would like to make you aware of a forum that we are holding to give participants an overview of the promotion and tenure (P&T) process and guidelines.  The forum will focus on faculty members who are going up for promotion and/or tenure in the near future.  A second forum will be scheduled this Fall for department heads and chairs, as well as chairs of department and/or college level P&T committees (details will be shared at a later date).  All faculty and staff are welcome to attend either of the sessions if interested.

P&T Open Forum for Faculty

May 10^th, 2012

9:30 – 11:00 am

MU 213 – Pan-Afrikan Sankofa

Please RSVP to sara.eklund@oregonstate.edu no later than May 1^st if you will attend.

For your reference, the P&T guidelines can be found at http://oregonstate.edu/admin/aa/faculty-handbook-promotion-and-tenure-guidelines.

Becky

******************

Rebecca Warner

Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

628 Kerr Administration

Oregon State University

541.737.0732 phone

541.737.3033 fax

A student assistance fund in memory of Grace Wu, former Assistant Director of Personnel Services, was established in 1983.

As a member of the awards committee for the fund, I am asking for your assistance in identifying students eligible to receive the award.  Academic criteria or financial need will not be a consideration in the selection of a recipient.  Rather, the recipient must have made outstanding contributions to the campus and community, as well as having shown unbiased leadership.

The amount of the award is $500 and the selection criteria are as follows:

• Recipient must be a full-time student in good academic standing attending Oregon State University.
• Recipient must have sophomore, junior or senior class standing as of spring term 2008.
• Recipient must demonstrate unbiased leadership.
• Recipient must make outstanding contributions to campus and community life.

Please forward the attached nomination form to staff members in your department who may be aware of students eligible to receive the award.   Staff and faculty may not nominate family members.   The deadline for nominations is April 23, 2015.   The nomination forms should be directed to Patti Brady-Glassman, Financial Aid and Scholarship by 5:00 p.m.

The Recipient and their nominator will be invited to the Student Recognition and Awards Banquet being held on May 21, 2012.

Thank you for your assistance.

Patti Brady-Glassman

CORVALLIS — An Oregon State University scientist who has monitored air in China and measured pollution from California to the Arctic will address air quality in the West at the Monday, April 9, Corvallis Science Pub.

The program begins at 6 p.m. at the Old World Deli, 341 Second St. in Corvallis. It is free and open to the public.

Staci Simonich, an environmental chemist and professor in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences, has been tracking sources of contamination in high-elevation parks, including Sequoia in the Sierras, Washington’s Olympic and Denali in Alaska.

She will discuss her research on regional and international sources of pollution in the western United States. Using facilities in Oregon and other western states to track air movement, she and her colleagues have correlated the results of air and soil sampling in parks with events such as forest fires and pesticide use. She will discuss the factors that influence pollutant transport to and distribution in soils, plants and animals.
Read more: http://democratherald.com/news/local/science-pub-set-on-air-pollution-in-the-west/article_d2637f22-7e94-11e1-ada2-001a4bcf887a.html?mode=story#ixzz1rH2dMAcy