Double your fun

A giant puppet in the likeness of former College-Conservatory of Music Dean Robert Werner seems to double the administrator's enjoyment of his May retirement celebration. The jovial figure was constructed for the college's amended production of "Il Viaggio a Reims," in which Werner's likeness replaced one of King Charles X of France.

Werner served 15 years as CCM dean; among his outstanding achievements is the construction of the $93.2 million CCM Village.

UC president says thanks

The University of Cincinnati surged past a five-year fund-raising goal this summer with a final tally of $328.9 million. The goal for the campaign, the first of this magnitude, was $300 million.

The campaign proved that UC's alumni and friends, as well as major corporations, are willing to invest in the university's future. That investment will see many happy returns

"Thanks to our donors, the University of Cincinnati enters the 21st century with hundreds of new scholarships for our students, top-notch facilities for our best academic programs and endowments to support our outstanding faculty," says UC President Joseph Steger. "Thank you. On behalf of the UC community, thank you."

Links:

UC Foundation

Office of the current UC president

Robo-cats

When it comes to student-designed robots, one of the best in the world was built at the University of Cincinnati. "Bearcat II" took third place in the International Ground Robotics competition last summer at Disney World.

Engineering students from UC's robot team had to successfully maneuver the automated "Bearcat II" through obstacle, road-hazard and follow-the-leader courses, as well as pass a stringent vehicle inspection. The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems also rated students on their written and oral presentation.

Ernie Hall, director of the Center for Robotics Research at UC, says the team approach is not only an excellent way to teach students about feedback control, kinematics and artificial intelligence, it also boosts their leadership skills.

Link:

UC Center for Robotics Research

Fight indifference

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel didn't speak of the pain he has felt. He didn't tell the audience of 5,000 in Shoemaker Center how his family was destroyed by the Holocaust.

Instead, he focused on the pain of others in a speech titled "Against Indifference." A Just Community event, Wiesel's appearance was part of UC's week-long Worldfest celebration in May.

"What is it about a society that makes it unjust?" he asked. "Our society is indifferent. We remain eating and drinking and playing basketball while a continent away, people die."

He gave examples of indifference today toward the human slaughter in Kosovo, Rwanda and Sudan. "If you don't feel others' pain, you won't feel your own either," Wiesel cautioned. "And the moment you stop feeling pain, humanity is gone. The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference."

Wiesel is perhaps best known for the book "Night," an autobiographical account of his family's experience during the Holocaust. It is one of more than 40 books he has written during his years defending human rights and peace throughout the world.

Link:

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity

Forget the model glue and grab the five-axis milling machine. Putting together a car model just reached a new height of sophistication at the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

Last academic year, the college became the nation's only school with a five-axis milling machine, which can turn a computer-generated automotive design into a three-dimensional scale model within a few hours, rather than a few days. Industrial design students are using a $500,000 milling machine with a cutter head that moves along five axes -- X, Y, Z, A and B. It was jointly donated by General Motors Design Center, the General Motors Corp. and Tarus Products.

Making the green grassier

Old artificial turf was scraped away at Nippert Stadium this past summer, making the Bearcats' home field resemble an alien planet. But fans need not worry. A brand new playing surface was in place by August.

"FieldTurf" is more like natural grass, with longer blades and a tufting pattern that mimics growth, while retaining the durability of artificial turf. Below the grass rug, instead of blacktop or concrete, is an improved shock absorbing layer of sand and ground rubber from recycled athletic shoes.

The new surface material, in use by 150 collegiate and professional teams, has also been installed at Meyers Field, home of the Bearcat soccer teams. The renovations were part of a $2.3 million upgrade to the university's athletic facilities last summer.

Link:

GoBearcats.com

Learning isn't supposed to be this much fun. Or maybe it is. The folks at UC's Institute for Learning in Retirement have spent the last decade thinking the latter. ILR celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.

Typical of the lively spirit of the educational outreach to the 50-and-over crowd, students Ann Startz (left) and Gertrude Furer whirl as Faith Zavron teaches them a Jewish dance known as "Patch Tanz."

Launched in 1990 with 131 students and 14 seminars, the institute has grown exponentially and now boasts an annual enrollment of 2,400 members who attend 364 seminars.

(The program is now known as Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Contact them by calling 513-556-9174 or 513-556-9186.) [Added 2011]

The New York audience was puzzled. As the curtain rose on "Evita" last spring and familiar Andrew Lloyd Weber melodies swept through the hall, it appeared the orchestra was missing. The pit held only the conductor, 33 high tech speaker panels and one musician, David Smith, MM '81, DMA '95.

For Smith, who controlled the virtual orchestra from a single keyboard, the novelty was in superior sound quality from new state-of-the-art speakers. The concept itself was born a dozen years ago when Smith, then associate director of CCM's Electronic Music Studio, and Frederick Bianchi, studio director, first experimented with synthetic instrumental sound.

The alumnus, who teaches sound technology at New York City Technical College where "Evita" was performed, and Bianchi, director of computer music at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, initially used virtual orchestra for a UC opera production of "Iphegenie auf Tauris." "It was a crude system, but it did work," Smith says, and it led the pair to believe their idea had commercial potential.

Now partners in two companies, Realtime Music Solutions and Bianchi & Smith Virtual Orchestras for the Performing Arts, the duo doesn't want to replace musicians. Service is marketed as supplemental to small ensembles and touring companies.

"Live musicians still get the melody and all the fun stuff," Smith maintains.

Links:

Realtime Music Solutions

Frederick Bianchi's Wikipedia listing

Virtual orchestra on Wikipedia

Beauty spot

A fanciful gazebo is the perfect place to enjoy summer breezes, now that UC's Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) have completed their work at Whittier Victorian Gardens in Price Hill. Sandy Kahn (second from right), professor of accounting and business ethics at University College and adviser to the service club, estimates that 10,000 student hours have been spent since 1997 transforming a former community eyesore into a place of beauty -- everything from digging chunks of concrete out of the soil and rebuilding a high stone wall to finding grant money and obtaining a historic district designation.

Students who began the project have gone on to careers around the country and the globe, but several of this year's SIFE crew met at the site last spring. They are (from left) Mike Maney, Univ '00, Jeanette McClellan and Brad Gibson, DAAP '00, Univ '00. The fourth member of the SIFE team, Emily Phinney, Univ '00, was unable to attend.

James Johnson (right), owner of a local lawn service company, helped students restore the gazebo before it was placed in service and will take over yard maintenance responsibilities. "It's peaceful here," he says of the park.

Related article:

"College of Business MBA team wins third place in national field case competition" (2007)

Class dividends

Computer simulations and textbook games aren't good enough for students in Steve Wyatt's "Special Topics in Finance" class. During the spring academic quarter, they went beyond theory to the anxiety and exhilaration of managing a viable stock market portfolio worth $350,000.

The Student-Run Johnson Investment Counsel Fund is a gift from University of Cincinnati finance professor Timothy Johnson, founder and president of a successful Greater Cincinnati investment firm. His goal is not only to give students real-life experience in managing portfolios and analyzing stocks, but to impress on them their responsibility to future students: Profits are earmarked for scholarships in finance.

Happily, in spite of market fluctuations, the fund gained about $10,000 and its cash holdings increased by 6 percent.

Link:

UC's Lindner College of Business finance major