Facilities Care Improving Via Efficiency
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2 - 3 May 13, 2008 Spring Fling near Facilities care improving via efficiency, budget relief Spring Fling, a day of appre- ciation for staff and faculty, is Custodial and grounds services resulted in more efficient and entry that visitors often use. May 21. Find out about who are able to avoid the reductions of Summer construction summary, effective cleaning practices,” May Building Services also will set is included, how to be ready, recent summers at the West La- page 8 wrote. up a special unit, the custodial and what is offered for enjoy- fayette campus, and steps toward Parking garage cleaning, page 8 Available funding has al- refresh crew, this fall. Its members ment. Page 3. further improvement are being lowed for resumption of exterior will work days and provide quick prepared. window washing at academic and response to needs in public and Martha May, senior director “Custodial staff will continue to administrative buildings after a high-use areas. Caregiver Resource of buildings and grounds, wrote provide their general cleaning seven-year stoppage. It will start Added recycling containers Fair set by WorkLife in a May 1 memo that efficien- duties and focus their efforts on this summer but will take some will be part of a program WorkLife Programs is spon- cies and funding restoration have deep cleaning activities …. Trash time to work through, May says. expansion. soring the fourth annual enabled the changes. removal in offices and labs will Building Services plans to May expressed appreciation Family Caregiver Resource Summer reductions in continue at 3 times per week, re-establish interior window for the “understanding and sup- Fair on Tuesday, May 20. 2002-07 involved covering many and remain daily for classrooms cleaning on a regular cycle as well. port during our leaner budget The fair aims to help summer grounds tasks with and public use areas (restrooms, Grounds is planning steps to years.” Purdue employees balance reassigned custodial staff instead kitchens, libraries, etc).” renew and restore campus beauty, She also invited anyone with the responsibilities of work of summer hires, and reducing Moreover, work in 2007 with including planters along State a question or concern to contact and caregiving by provid- custodial services. Those steps a custodial consultant has led to Street and Northwestern Avenue. her at 49-40903, or mamay@pur- ing a variety of local experts enabled Buildings and Grounds improved allocation of person- A new Grounds quick re- due.edu; Terry Ashlock, director on caring for an aging or to ride out the extended budget nel and upgrades in equipment, sponse and project crew will work of building services, at 49-41425 disabled loved one. crunch without layoffs. including more automated closely with University landscape or [email protected]; or Gary The event, open to the This year, without reassign- equipment. architects, starting with improv- Evans, director of grounds, at 49- campus and community, will ments or reductions, May wrote, “All these activities have ing appeal of campus points of 40139 or [email protected]. be from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the North Ballroom, Purdue Memorial Union. For more information on OnePurdue the Family Caregiver Re- source Fair, contact WorkLife Programs at 49-45461. moving to ACE program to begin Cognos as 30th class this fall Applications will be accepted reporting tool through June 30 for the Ac- Purdue has adopted Cognos as complished Clerical Excel- a common reporting tool for lence (ACE) program on the the new Banner student systems West Lafayette campus. going into production this year, The 30th class of ACE will the SAP human resources and begin in September. financial software that went ACE is a two-year pro- online in 2007, and Advancement gram offering clerical staff an databases. opportunity to enhance their Although the initial empha- knowledge, skills, and abili- sis will be on using Cognos to ties. The program focuses on report from these systems’ data, interpersonal, organizational, this tool also supervisory, and working More OnePurdue can be used relationship skills. ACE also to generate news: Plus/ helps participants learn more reports from about the University while minus grading, departmental they build contacts across PHOTO BY DAVE UMBERGER myPurdue train- databases. ing, page 6 campus. Purdue computer experts put the finishing touches on Steele, a new supercomputer that is among the largest in the world, by This transi- HR Training and Devel- adding servers. Staff members were challenged to build the supercomputer in a day May 5, but finished the job by lunchtime. tion will occur opment will send both an over time, said e-mail invitation and an in- Jeff Whitten, associate vice presi- formative postcard to all West dent of ITaP’s Enterprise Applica- Lafayette clerical employees Superfast! Supercomputer assembly tions unit and OnePurdue’s chief in late May. architect. “We know the shift to the new as impressive as its work capacity financial and HR systems last year Purdue staff members had hoped The supercomputer, which is neering researchers from facing was not without some reporting to build the Big Ten’s largest named “Steele” for John Steele, a lengthy downtime, McCartney bumps and curves in the road,” he campus supercomputer in just a former staff and faculty member, says. said, “so we are doing everything day on May 5. is made up of 812 Dell servers The first shift of workers we can to make the change to n Budget Q & A But it didn’t take that long and is capable of performing 60 was scheduled to begin unpack- Cognos a smooth one.” Morgan R. Olsen, executive vice president — they were done by lunch. trillion operations per second. ing boxes at 7 a.m., but many More than 50 West Lafayette and treasurer, gives an overview of “The assembly was finished The supercomputer would rank employees arrived at 6 a.m., eager information technology lead- Purdue’s general fund budget. Page 3. much faster than we expected, in the top 40 of the current rank- to begin working. By 11 a.m. the ers, departmental computing n Numerous notables and by noon we were doing ing of the world’s most powerful supercomputer was essentially managers, and representatives from the Calumet, North Central Dozens of Purdue staff and faculty have science,” says Gerry McCartney, supercomputers, and is the largest complete except for a few nodes received appointments, honors and vice president for information supercomputer on a Big Ten cam- that were intentionally held back and IPFW campuses met May 7 awards recently. Pages 4 and 5. technology and chief information pus that is not a part of a national to be installed at the noon in West Lafayette to discuss the officer. “The staff was enthusi- center. dedication. future of reporting at Purdue. n Appetite for summer astic, the weather was great, and A time-lapse video of the “We discovered that a build The briefing, presented by A guide to summer dining on the West there were no problems installing supercomputer construction is like this leverages the commodity Whitten, Mike Szczepanski, direc- Lafayette campus tells what, when, and the hardware or software. There is available online at www.youtube. nature of cluster computing, by tor of business services comput- where. Mmmmm. Page 7. no cloud to accompany this silver com/watch?v=GQxUCNfD_pc. using standard computing parts,” ing, and Lee Gordon, assistant n Discoveries lining.” More than 200 employees McCartney said. “By using com- vice president for student services and technology and assessment, From nanotubes in manufacturing to By 1 p.m. more than 500 of helped build the massive ma- modity computer servers to build viruses in birds, researchers are learning the 812 nodes that make up the chine, which is about the size of our supercomputer, we didn’t addressed several topics, amazing and valuable things. Page 9. supercomputer were already a semitrailer. Purdue’s computer have to fly in engineers or hire including: running 1,400 research jobs from was built in a single day to keep Online at www.purdue.edu/per across campus. the University’s science and engi- See Super, page 12 See Cognos, page 6 2 May 13, 2008 Elections held for Senate committees Senate wraps up busy year with reports, The following faculty mem- tee: David Anderson, professor bers were elected at the April of mechanical engineering; Sally 21meeting to serve on Univer- Hastings, associate professor of vote on grade index adjustment policy sity Senate committees during history; Marion Trout, associ- The University Senate finished faculty and staff would like to see percent since 2000. academic 2008-09: ate professor of bands; and G. a busy year by voting on a grade Purdue grow,” said Senate Chair “To recruit and retain the • Educational Policy Com- Thomas Wilson, associate profes- index adjustment policy, receiving George Bodner, who served as increased numbers and caliber mittee: Janet Alsup, associate sor of pharmacy practice. a draft of Purdue’s next strategic co-chair of the Strategic Planning of graduate students we need professor of English education; • University Resources Policy plan, and hearing reports on Steering Committee. “The strategic to achieve the goals of our next Joseph Kmec, associate professor Committee: Ernest Blatchley III, graduate programs and student plan will provide a foundation strategic plan, we must in some of mechanical engineering tech- professor of civil engineering; athletes’ academic success. upon which a series of action items way improve our competitive nology; Mark Moriarty, associate Lawrence DeBoer, professor of At its April 21 meeting, the will be built, and I am excited net compensation for graduate professor of management; and agricultural economics; Shawn Senate approved a proposal from about the prospect this provides.” students,” Levy said.