The Oracle MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2014 I VOL. 51 NO. 129
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA
Summer to become ‘better than ever’ on campus By Alex Rosenthal E D I T O R
I N
C H I E F
As some incoming freshmen start their college careers this week and the Summer B semester begins, so does a series of new initiatives at USF to make summer campus life “bigger and better than ever.” Most students can get directly involved with the new summer atmosphere through the First Fifty Days of Summer, a campus-wide program led by New Student Connections that creates a series of social and academic events for students on campus similar to the fall’s Week of Welcome, but many are likely to see changes ranging
from increased programming to more course offerings. While USF Vice President for Student Affairs Tom Miller said fall will always be the beginning of the academic year, summer can no longer be “a nap in the hammock.” Summer vacation away from campus will continue to appeal to some, but according to Miller, there has always been a significant number of students who take summer courses and some incoming freshmen who start in the summer instead of the fall. In recent years, the campus has averaged 21,000 each summer and Miller said the university has seen an increase this year. “For those with a previous
summer experience, you’ll notice it will begin to feel different on campus,” he said. To boost student life on campus, Academic Affairs and Student Affairs created “Summer@USF” to do everything from increase course offerings to open job opportunities and other activities on campus. “Historically we’ve had students taking longer to get their degrees because of the availability of coursework,” Miller said. “So what the new Summer@USF program is doing, since its centered on the student, is giving the student the opportunity to get the courses they need and not the only ones left but the courses they want and
the high demand courses that are hard to get into at other times.” Leading Summer@USF is Cynthia DeLuca, USF assistant vice provost for Innovation Education who came to USF after working for 15 years at universities such as North Carolina State where she was in charge of enrollment management for summer sessions. “I am a true believer that the summer should be an integral part for a student’s academic experience,” DeLuca said. DeLuca said summer gives more opportunity for the university to offer courses that are in high demand and for students to take courses nec-
n See SUMMER on PAGE 3
ORACLE PHOTO/ADAM MATHIEU
Art and science merge at Dali Museum By Adam Mathieu S T A F F
W R I T E R
In a blend of the art world and the science community, an exhibit at the St. Petersburg Dali Museum showcased a medley of the two. The audience for Thursday’s PLASM exhibit at the museum watched from the grass lawn as projected shapes ebbed and flowed on the building side. David Fries, systems architect for the Integrative Creative Technologies Group at the USF Institute for Research and Arts, said projected images resembled the biological appearance one might see on a microscope slide, designed to simulate biological reactions when exposed to light, sound and chemical reactions. The art-science collaboration is derived not only from the museum’s namesake, Salvador Dali, but from what Fries said is a relationship between two fields that benefit from one another. “Both artist and scientist observe the world,” he said. “Artists typically work to try to represent the world and scientists build instruments to observe it. Having different ways of viewing
the world may help with making sense of our observations with the world.” The art-science dynamic allows for a bridge to be made between two fields, both looking to examine the world, he said. USF students could study the simulation for their research as Fries is experimenting with mixing art and science and bringing that into his research here at USF. Because PLASM, created by Fries in collaboration with international artist TeZ, runs on unique mathematical algorithms, viewers will never see replicated images, making each viewing unique. “New technology is creating ways to help create an experience,” Fries said. “… There is some enlightenment that maybe through the artists, in their intuitive perspective, may help with making sense of the myriad of data that we get in the science observational space.” As one image slipped into the next, viewers repeatedly experienced something for the first and only time. “These are almost like evolutionary artworks,” Fries said. “Perpetual artworks that have a
The art-science exhibit PLASM was projected onto St. Petersburg’s Dali Museum on Thursday, displaying an evolving simulation supported by USF’s Institute for Research and Arts. ORACLE PHOTO/ADAM MATHIEU starting point in time and space said. really big on perception and visual that then change.” For Kathy White, deputy direc- transformation,” White said. For Fries, the fascination with tor at the Dali Museum, PLASM Fries also said the Dali philosoPLASM comes in part from the was a good fit for the museum phy fit with PLASM. fleeting quality of the work. and the Dali approach. “Salvador Dali used science “It evolves and only at that “Our mission is largely educa- to inspire his art, he primarily moment in time is each configu- tional, exposing people to new focused on using relativity, quanration; you only get to experience ways of looking at things, espe- tum physics or optics,” Fries said. it once, similar to our lives,” Fries cially (Salvador) Dali, who was n See DALI on PAGE 3