Exam Issue Fall 2014

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TECHNICIAN

New degree program links NCSU to UNC-CH

A new undergraduate degree in the biomechanical engineering field will join NC State’s engineering and UNC-CH’s medicine fields. Students in the program will be able to enroll in classes at both universities, and gain a joint degree from both universities. The proposal for the program will be considered by the Board of Governors. This collaboration is expected to serve as a model for future joint programs across the UNC System campuses. Although NC State already offers a major in biomedical engineering and UNC-CH offers a minor, the joint program will make both stronger. Biomedical engineering was ranked as the best job of the year in 2013 by CNN Money, and space in the program is expected to be in high demand. SOURCE: News & Observer

Revamp of AP U.S. sparks controversy

The redesign of the Advanced Placement U.S. History course is under debate and was heard by the N.C. Board of Education Monday. The absence of America’s “exceptionalism” in these new AP U.S. History course guidelines came under fire by Larry Krieger, a national activist and retired history teacher. Krieger wants the College Board to revisit the new guidelines and is among other conservative activists who believe that the course teaches a view of American history that is too negative. John Williamson, the executive director of AP curriculum for the College Board, said that the revision of the course was driven by teachers’ concern that there were too many topics to cover and that the new guidelines will allow for more flexibility for teachers. SOURCE: News & Observer

NCSU faculty members elected to be AAAS fellows

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has elected NC State faculty members David C. Dorman, Justin Schwartz, Bruce A. Sherwood and Mohammed A. Zikry as AAAS fellows. The largest scientific society in the world, the AAAS also publishes the journal Science. The NC State faculty members were among 401 other scientists recognized by the AAAS after being nominated by colleagues and taking part in a lengthy review process. In February, the fellows will be honored at an AAAS meeting in San Jose, California. SOURCE: NC State press release

Vivian Howard to speak at commencement

NC State’s commencement address will be given by Chef Vivian Howard, a North Carolina native featured on PBS’ “A Chef’s Life.” Howard opened Chef & the Farmer restaurant in 2005 and the Boiler Room Oyster Bar in 2013 with her husband Ben Knight. “A Chef’s Life” was a recipient of the Peabody Award in 2014 and showcases Howard and Knight’s experiences in the restaurant business. Also during the commencement ceremony, Chancellor Randy Woodson will bestow George M. Whitesides with an honorary degree. Whitesides is a chemist, a leading researcher in many fields such as soft robotics and has had breakthroughs in nanotechnology and new materials. SOURCE: NC State press release

2014-2015

2015-2016

2016-2017

Tuition and engineering fee increases for undergraduates

24,927

$23,927

$22,573 Out-of-state tuition

$21,386

Out-of-state tuition plus engineering fee

$23,073 $1000

Staff Writer

$500

Other out of state students tuition Special engineering fee

$90 In-state tuition

$6,220

$7,407

$6,720

In-state tuition plus engineering fee

$6,220

$6,038 Other in-state students

$6,407

Trustees approve fee increases for engineers NC State’s Board of Trustees approved a special student fee increase for the university’s 8,800 engineering students, in addition to voting to raise the cost of tuition by at least 3 percent for the entire student body. Engineering students at NC State currently pay a $90 fee in addition to other required student fees. The new increase, approved by the Board in late November, would raise that fee to

$1,500 over the course of three years. In addition to the fee increase for engineers, the trustees approved a tuition increase of 3 percent for all in-state students and 6 percent for all out-of-state students in each of the next two years. If the proposal is accepted by the UNC-System Board of Governors, tuition for in-state undergraduate students will rise to $6,407 by 2016-17, increasing $182 next year and then another $187 a year later. Tuition for out-of-state undergraduate students will increase to $23,926 by the fall of 2016.

Standard student fees for all students would also rise $138 by the fall of 2016, raising the total to $2,396 for undergraduates and $2,407 for undergraduates. The fee increase request the Board of Trustees approved is made biennially, so it only officially approved the special engineering fee increase of up to $1,000 for the fall of 2016. However, the university is planning to request an additional $500 increase to bring the total annual fee for engineering students up to

FEES continued page 2

“Jobs within the next few years will require some form of post-secondary education.” Patti Baynes, program director of NC State’s College Advising Corps

high school students who apply for a post-secondary education. “The students that we serve are all in high-need areas,” said Patti Baynes, program director of NC State’s College Advising Corps. “The schools we serve have over a 50 percent free and reduced lunch

ADVISING continued page 2

GLBT students find solidarity in STEM fields Taylor Quinn Associate Features Editor

Two acronyms rarely seen paired together are GLBT and STEM. According to Ian Pike, a sophomore studying civil engineering, GLBT students are a big part of the science, technology, engineering and math fields, but they’re not very visible. He said that despite growing acceptance in American society, there is still a considerable amount of anxiety surrounding coming out in STEM majors. Pike and Kyle Vey, a senior studying biomedical engineering, hope to combat this fear by starting a chapter of the national group oSTEM (Out in STEM) to NC State’s campus next semester. “It’s not that [GLBT students] are not there, it’s just that they are not represented; they don’t feel safe being there as authentically as they want to be, so it’s definitely just like a culture of fear,” Pike said. Pike started in computer science

but said the major wasn’t going well for him and “neither was his gender,” so he dropped out of school to figure it out. “I’m transgendered and bisexual, so I get half the letters,” Pike joked. He ended up choosing civil engineering because he was helping people, but from “backstage.” He currently works for the Department of Transportation in the traffic safety unit as an intern. But according to Pike and countless national reports, the job search for GLBT students can be scary because gender identity and sexual orientation are not legally protected classes federally or in most states. “If I work for the state government, I could be fired for being trans, so I don’t want to be out at work,” Pike said. “That would be scary if I came out and my boss thought it was a negative thing.” Because Pike appears to be a straight man to someone who

OSTEM continued page 2

insidetechnician

FEATURES

SPORTS

OPINION

Alumnus discovers success in two careers

Wolfpack fall season in review

The future tense makes our futures tense

See page 5.

For many students in rural communities in North Carolina, college is often out of the picture due to lack of resources and knowledge about how to apply. However, NC State’s College Advising Corps is trying to increase the number of low-income, underrepresented, rural

proposal approved by the NC State Board of Trustees GRAPHIC BY AUSTIN BRYAN

News Editor

Advising Corps aids prospective students

Inez Nicholson

$21,296

Katherine Kehoe

2014

Raleigh, North Carolina

technicianonline.com

IN BRIEF

fall exam issue

See page 8.

See page 4.

GAVIN STONE/ TECHNICIAN

Stephanie Huang, junior studying art and design with a new media and animation concentration, using a hand held laser scanner to scan the skull of an Allosaurus(italics) as part of her internship at the NC Museum of Natural Science.

Design students help to recreate ancient crocodile Gavin Stone Staff Writer

Design students from NC State helped create a 3D model of the skull of a newly discovered species of crocodile recently uncovered in Durham. The students worked with the NC Museum of Natural Science and a team of researchers including Lindsay Zanno, an assistant research professor in the NC State department of biology and the director of the Paleontology & Geology Research Laboratory at the NC Museum of Natural Science. The specimen is one of the oldest known species of crocodile and is from the Triassic period, making it about 231 million years old, according to Zanno. When the discovery was made, Zanno sent out an email to stu-

dents in the College of Design asking for any students interested in reconstructing the skull for credit or just for fun. Three students responded to the email: Stephanie Huang, now a junior studying art and design with a concentration in new media and animation, and Joe Savage and Mary Katherine Snow, who at the time were both seniors in industrial design but have since graduated. “We had skull bones from a new species of crocodile, and we wanted to model the whole skull,” Zanno said. “So we had students scan in the pieces of skull that we did have and then scan in skulls of some of its close relatives. We then took pieces of these completed skulls to fill in and create a 3D model which in-

DESIGN continued page 3


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