Campus News

12 | www.stmartin.eduCAMPUS NEWS 12 | www.stmartin.edu SSG Brittany Ramsey has been chosen by Saint Martin’s University as its 12th recipient of the America's Service Heroes Scholarship. The America’s Service Heroes Scholarship was created in partnership with America’s Credit Union to provide financial assistance to service members and their families. “These heroes have sacrificed for our nation’s well-being and security,” says Cruz Arroyo, associate dean for administration at Saint Martin’s University – Joint Base LewisMcChord Campuses. “The foremost wish of the scholarship’s founders and supporters was to provide support to the defenders of our nation while they pursued their higher education goals,” he said. “It was also their desire to provide financial relief and support to all of America’s Service Heroes serving around the globe.” “I am sincerely honored to be selected for the Saint Martin’s University 2020 America’s Service Hero (ASH) Scholarship! Studying at Saint Martin’s University has been a complete privilege and joy,” Ramsey said. “It is an even greater appreciation to be placed among the ranks of past honorees,” Ramsey said. “Thank you to the President of SMU and the benefactors for making this scholarship and award possible for our forces. I would like to especially thank my advisor, Dean, and leadership whose contributions continue to support and lend success towards my educational goals term after term. Receiving this award will absolutely Congratulations SSG BRITTANY RAMSEY provide more opportunity for reaching these higher educational goals this year and next.” u

We are proud to announce that Dr. Chung-Shing Lee has been appointed to serve as the new Dean of the School of Business. “I am grateful to join the Saint Martin's University's leadership team with vision and strategy and care about people, and most importantly, the core values of a faith-based university and the determination to advance equity, diversity, inclusion, justice, and sustainability,” said Dr. Lee, who received his Doctor of Science (D.Sc.), Engineering and Technology Management from George Washington University and his Master of Arts (M.A.), Economics from the University of Maryland. “I look forward to working with a great group of colleagues who support each other to advance the School and the University missions.” Prior to his current position, Dr. Lee was a Professor of Technology and Innovation Management and Dean of the School of Business at Pacific Lutheran University, a liberal arts and faith-based institution in Tacoma. He brings more than eight years of full-time business experience and more than five years of administrative leadership, first as associate dean and the past three years as Dean of the PLU business school. In addition, Dr. Lee has been a visiting Professor in the College of Management and a Research Associate in the Institute of Knowledge Service and Innovation at Yuan Ze University in Taiwan, and a faculty research associate at the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) at the University of Maryland. He is also a member of the editorial boards of Technological Forecasting and Social Change, International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, Journal of Competitive Studies, and the Competitiveness Review. u

CAMPUS NEWS 14 | www.stmartin.edu Initially, the group was scheduled to journey to Australia to study the longest nights of the year in the Southern Hemisphere, but COVID-19 halted their travel plans. Saint Martin’s IT, however, stepped up to make sure the research continued, allowing Dr. Kunder and her team to take in the stars while staying local. According to Dr. Kunder, “One exciting part of the summer was using the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The National Science Foundation’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NSF’s OIR Lab) accepted my proposal to use four nights of the Anglo-Australian Telescope ($65,800) and my time was scheduled for June 20-23, so the longest nights of year in the Southern Hemisphere were ours. The Anglo-Australian Telescope is a 4-m class telescope best known for its spectrograph that allows for acquisition of up to 392 simultaneous spectra of objects anywhere within a 2-degree field of view. My research group and I all had plane tickets to travel to Australia to use the AngloAustralian Telescope in June, but COVID-19 stopped all travel to Australia. Instead, with the help of Garrett Russell from SMU IT, we set up a secure connection from SMU to the Anglo-Australian Telescope and were able to operate the telescope remotely form the physics classroom on campus. The 1 Gb bandwidth afforded to us from IT and the screen real-estate we set up, enabled us to do this successfully. We spent four nights in the Ernsdorff Physics classroom, driving the telescope and communicating via zoom with the control room in Sydney and the telescope operator at the telescope. We ended up having cloudy skies for three of the four nights but were able to collect some new stellar spectra during the one clear night. Danielle Miller, a civil engineering major, was the undergraduate lead in the data collection part of the observations. Riley Crabb is leading the analysis of this data to confirm or refute the hypothesis that there is a Galactic nuclear ring in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.” u LED BY DR. ANDREA KUNDER, AN SMU RESEARCH GROUP SPENT FOUR  NIGHTS OVER THE SUMMER USING THE ANGLO-AUSTRALIAN TELESCOPE REMOTELY. MAPPING THE MILKY WAY DR. ANDREA KUNDER

Saint Martin’s University has received a $2.25 million Title III grant from the U.S. Department of Education, under the Strengthening Institutions Program. “Congratulations to Saint Martin's University,” said Congressman Denny Heck. “I am pleased that this award will help provide Saint Martin’s students with expanded experiential learning and internship opportunities throughout the South Sound as they pursue their degrees and graduation. I am proud to represent Saint Martin’s in Congress and applaud its commitment to supporting its students through innovative methods and partnerships with community organizations and businesses.” The funds, awarded over five years, will support new initiatives designed to improve student success, address student needs, and bolster the University's persistence and completion rates. This grant will provide the support to provide equitable access to experiential learning, including internships, service-learning and undergraduate research. Students will gain valuable work experience to complement their academic work. The grant will provide support to faculty to advise and supervise student interns, and it will strengthen our community relationships. An important element of the grant is that it provides the structure for professional development for our students, addressing the gaps in social capital that our student population may have. “The grant is to strengthen the institution, and its impact will be felt across the university,” said Ann Adams, Saint Martin’s Associate Dean of Students. “The goal is to transform the students’ academic experience into one that includes participation in internships which will increase graduation rates and deepen engagement with our community partners.” The Title III grant builds on Saint Martin’s Saints Promise strategic initiatives launched earlier in 2020. The program is a promise of a successful outcome from a Saint Martin’s University education to students who invest in their career planning by completing year-by-year activities. Elements of implementing this grant include dedicated faculty and staff for internship development, networking events, visits (in-person and virtual) to workplaces of our alumni, financial literacy, and development of career competencies. The grant also includes a $450,000 match over five years to grow an endowment. The endowment is unrestricted dollars that can be used to sustain or be directed to grow this effort in support of student success. In order to apply for Title III funds, applicants have to meet certain criteria based on a percentage of PELL eligible students and university core expenditures (educational and general expenditures) before they can even apply for Title III. “This grant builds on the extraordinary work we do for the students we serve and the transformational experience we strive to provide all students,” said Saint Martin’s President Dr. Roy Heynderickx. “By providing new, significant resources to areas we know will increase student success, this grant will allow us to excel at what we do best as a Catholic, Benedictine university.” u

The new Bruno and Evelyne Betti Foundation Nursing Education Center in Old Main houses an eight-bed nursing learning lab, two-bed simulation suite, classroom, faculty offices and equipment storage rooms. Thank you again to The Bruno and Evelyne Betti Foundation whose commitment of $2.8 million to Saint Martin’s University supported the renovation of 12,000 square feet of space on the first floor of Old Main to create dedicated facilities for the University’s nursing programs, which include the BSN program and the RN-to-BSN program. The foundation’s commitment included $2.5 million to cover the costs of the remodel and $300,000 to establish an endowment in support of nursing scholarships. u