Spring 2000 A departmental newsletter for UM-Rolla Ceramic Engineering Alumni and Friends INSIDE News from the Chairman Hi! These are very unusual times for us at UMR, as we will The Year in Brief 2 describe. Frankly, we are going to need your financial help more Annual Banquets 3 than at any time before. The basic problem is that we are caught in a demand-supply time warp. Let me explain … Survey Results 3 15th Univ. Conf. on First, here’s some great news. These are exciting times for Ceramic Engineering students and for new graduates. Starting Glass Science 4 salary offers have increased 30-60% over five years ago – and, Picnic 4 jobs are going begging. Entry level salaries have begun to cross $50K for some employers – and these are repeat customers. Our Alumni News & Memoria 5 grads are being sought by both the traditional ceramic industries 2000 ACerS Convention 5 and high tech companies. Nearly 200 companies came to the Giving Partners 6 career fair in the spring, with some having to be turned away. We are producing highly respected graduates! Virtual Department 7 But, here is some worrisome news. In spite of the unprece- Faculty News 7 dented quality of the job market, engineering enrollment Where Gifts Are 8 throughout the country continues downward as UMR is Grads & Notices 9 painfully experiencing. These enrollment declines are creating prolonged budget crunches in the UM System and are resulting in Your Turn 10 extensive internal organizational reviews on the campuses, which could alter the structure of low-enrollment departments. The University of Missouri Curators have resolved to pare the costs of operation for the next five years. One way that impacts us is in the plan to reduce the levels of university-funded scholarships. What we need to do: While we are not one of the inadequately-enrolled departments, we are below our averages of the last fifteen years. Freshman enrollment is primarily affected by the number and amount of scholarships we can offer, and here we are at a distinct disadvantage relative to other departments due to insufficient scholarship funds available for qual- ified Freshmen. This deficiency will be magnified by the reduction in campus scholarship funds mentioned earlier. Thus, scholarship fund development is a high priority focus area for us as we are asking our alumni to help us during these dif- ficult times. In a companion article, we hope you will see that we have been good stewards of your previous gifts, but we covet your generous support at this time! (See “Where Your Gifts Have Gone”). We urgently need our alumni to consider making gifts of $200 or more to us during the February Phonathon – or sooner! Make sure to read on. We intend to report on the many positive things happening at this time in separate articles in this newsletter. Make sure you read them all. See who’s retired. See who’s been hired. But before I close this message, let me share some general feedback from tear sheets you sent back. First, our alums want more feedback about their class- mates – and this we will do, but you have to help us. In this issue we have expanded the alumni news to include all we have at this time. If you send us news, we’ll attempt to publish it. Second, the alums would like to hear from us more often. So, we are going to try to get two or three smaller newsletters issued each year, focusing on different topics. But, that also means we need to hear from you more often. Wayne Huebner Department Chairman Ceramic Engineering Department Mudslinger, Spring 2000 2 dramatically. This process is part of continuing efforts to The Year in Brief improve the content and quality of the education our under- graduates receive. Responses to last year’s survey played Greetings from your Alma Mater ! This has been another the key role in our decisions - thanks for your input ! exciting year for the department. I won’t repeat here what Differential Equations is now a technical elective instead of is contained in this issue, except for a few highlights: a requirement; we have substituted Statistical Design of Experiments. EE 282, Electrical Circuits, is history. We’ve The Keramos chapter at UMR won the James E. Mueller added two new courses: Cer 300: “Organic Additives to Outstanding Chapter Award for a record FOURTH con- Ceramic Systems,” and Cer 101: “Introduction to Ceramics.” secutive year ! This beats the previous record held by The latter will be offered during the freshmen year as a sub- Alfred University. With the hard work and determination of stitute for the cancelled FE 015. this year’s student groups I predict we will win a fifth time. Dr. Brow is the Keramos Faculty Advisor, and I know he’s In the year 2002 we will be reviewed by the Accreditation enjoying beating up on his Alma Mater (Alfred). Board for Engineering Technology (ABET), using an entire- ly new set of criteria. Important to this process is informa- We celebrated the 67th anniversary of the student tion from our alumni regarding the value of their education, branch of the ACerS (originally the Orton Society) and the and suggestions for improving what we do. Our success is 52nd anniversary of Keramos with our 3rd Annual in large part due to our outstanding undergraduates, who Homecoming BBQ. (see report) work hard to maintain a professional attitude but at the 21 B.S., 2 M.S. and 2 Ph.D. students graduated same time have a lot of fun. The quality of our students is from the department this year - all have jobs ! still well above UMR average. The average incoming ACT James Fleming and Charlie Sorrell were honored score is 29.4, and the average GPA=3.195. Both are highs with Professional Degrees at the December in the School of Mines and Metallurgy. Campus-wide, only Commencement. the applied Mathematics and Physics departments were We have another new faculty member ! Dr. Bill better. Fahrenholtz, from the University of New Mexico, joined the faculty in July. The Phonathon is coming up on Feb. 27th through March Drs. Ownby, Day and Anderson all “retired” this 1st, and I hope you won’t vacate the premises on those year. Fortunately for the department, all are still here work- nights. We’ll have a hard-working group of students calling ing hard on their research. for your help. Last year the department raised a record At the ACerS Convention in St. Louis this year we $17,166. Thank you for helping future generations of UMR will have a dinner honoring Dr. Charles Sorrell on Monday Ceramic Engineers ! Thanks also to all the alumni who night. Those of you who had Dr. Sorrell as a professor know visit us regularly. Believe me when I say how great the what a positive impact he had on many alumni. We hope impact on the students is when you come to our Keramos you can make the dinner, and bring along a few stories to banquet, attend the reception at the convention, and talk to share. We’re looking for volunteer speakers who can roast them in the hallways when you’re on campus. / honor Dr. Sorrell. The registration form for the dinner is on the pull-out sheet. Please return the insert to the Wayne Huebner TOC Department before April 20. The students groups have had another banner year, per- Phonathon Dates forming a wide variety of outreach activities, running the University Open House, Parent’s Day, etc. Pictures and details follow. The May and December graduates enjoyed another out- standing recruiting year. All of the graduates accepted offers and every week employers are calling, looking for graduates, and we have none to offer ! This is particularly disappointing to me. We could use a few more undergradu- ates. If you’re looking for a career change, a good place to look is the Ceramic Engineering Department web page. A section of the website is dedicated to job opportunities. The faculty are productive as ever in research. At UMR the average faculty research productivity is $40K; in our department the average this past year approached February 27 - $200K. See the highlights in the Faculty News section. March 1, 2000 Over the course of this year the curriculum was changed Ceramic Engineering Department Mudslinger, Spring 2000 3 Keramos and ACerS/NICE growing. While the faculty really look forward to the alumni visits, this occasion means a great deal to the current stu- Annual Banquet dents. For many, it’s their first chance to meet practicing ceramic engineers. We’ve structured it so that it’s not an evening’s commitment, but a good fun time – and as some- The annual Honors Banquet was held this year at Aussie one has said, we’re always ready to “meet and eat”. Jacks, a new restaurant in Fort Leonard Wood. A good time Please, put this on your schedule when you return for was had by all, and the following honors were given out: homecoming. It’ll mean a lot to us. TOC Honorary Keramos: Dr. Ken Goretta, Argonne Ntl. Labs Distinguished Alumni: Mike Koenigstein, Roesch Enamel Outstanding UG: Julie Crow Outstanding Senior: Sarah Vehige Outstanding Graduate : Chad Essary Outstanding Faculty: Richard Brow Survey Results Thank you so much for your survey feedback last year. We have looked over every response very thoroughly and with much interest. We are happy that the vast majority of respondents are pleased with their education and would recommend others to UMR.