Dear Students,
Some big science news this past week was the announcements of the Nobel Prizes. The chemistry prize went to Dan Shechtman for the discovery of quasicrystals; the physics prize went to Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam G. Riess for their discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe, the prize in medicine was shared between Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann for their discoveries of the activation of innate immunity and Ralph Steinman for his discovery of the dendritic cell.
Besides catching my eye for the relative youth of the physics prize winners (Quiz: who was the youngest Nobelist ever?), the announcements reminded me of the incredible scholarship and creativity of our faculty, including Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, 16 members elected to the National Academy of Sciences or Engineering, 17 Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2 recipients of the National Medal of Science, and several faculty recognized by the President's Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (including this year's Prof. Sara Sawyer). Coming to a College like ours opens a host of opportunities, internship, or laboratory experiences which I hope you all will participate in during your time here. Experiential learning opportunities with our faculty are what distinguishes an undergraduate degree from the Austin College of Natural Sciences. As our Dean David Laude has noted, the education and research opportunities in CNS are creating more science majors than ever.
CNS FAMILY DAY: Please join us for the CNS Family Day event, part of the Texas Parent's Family Weekend. Parents, family and students are all invited! Our event is held Saturday, October 22nd, 9am-12pm, at the Texas Memorial Museum (east side of campus). Interim Dean Laude and a CNS student, Shannon Allport, will speak around 9:30am. Most departments will have booths or a table with interactive and information, and the Physics Circus will perform around 10am. A light breakfast will be served. For questions, please contact Holly Hunt.
INTERNSHIPS IN DC: UT System has a campus in Washington, DC, known as the Archer Center, which strives to promote public service and the next generation of future leaders. Each fall and spring, 32 undergraduate students are selected to participate in the undergraduate Archer Fellowship Program, which counts for 15 hours of in-residence course credit by taking classes on policy, politics and advocacy and interning in Washington, D.C. All majors may apply. Applications for the 2012-2013 academic year are due on Friday, February 17, 2012. Information sessions will be held in FAC 4 on 10/17 at 5pm, 10/18 at 4:30pm, 10/19 at 4pm, 11/1 at 5pm, and 11/2 at 5pm.
IT'S TIME TO REGISTER FOR SPRING 2012 SEMESTER:
Registration for Spring, 2012 begins on October 24, 2011; Seniors and Juniors will register the week of October 24th, Sophomores and Freshmen the week of October 31st. Your registration access time is based on your last name and the courses you’ve completed (classes in progress don’t count.). You can find your specific registration times by checking online. Please contact your advising center soon to arrange an advising appointment, and be sure to submit an online advising worksheet. You should start studying the spring, 2012 course schedule.I know you all are still thinking about midterms, papers to write, and the next football game, but it's time to pay attention to this. You all have it much better than what I remember at my alma mater, where we got our slot for registration by standing in line -- first come first served. Back then, many of us slept out on the Quad for one or two nights to get the "choice classes." Fortunately, today we have the internet.
INCREDIBLE SCIENTIFIC INVENTIONS THIS WEEK: A colleague passed along the following video of inventor Theo Jansen who builds "self-propelled robots."
Best of luck in the coming week.
Yours,
Dr. Sacha Kopp
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