April 13, 2006


LAUP Lecture Series presents three lectures by Lee Einsweiler

U&RS Ph.D. students place first in Research Week competition

Paper on climate change planning garners international recognition

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This week's events

Spring 2006 calendar highlights


Computer staff offers weekly IT Q&A

Performance evaluation process

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CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS:
See complete listings for details.

April 13, 6 p.m. Architecture awards banquet at Pebble Creek Country Club
April 13, 9 p.m. - 12 a.m. Arch 443 lighting show in the Langford Architecture Center
April 19, 5 p.m. Texas Chapels lecture with Nora Loas in Langford Auditorium
April 19, 6 p.m. LAUP awards banquet at Briarcrest Country Club
May 5-6, 8-5 p.m. TEX-GRAPH in the Geren Auditorium
May 5-6, 7 p.m. Viz-a-GoGo XIII in the Rudder tower and theater complex
May 9, 7 p.m. Special advance screening of "Over the Hedge" at Cinemark theater in College Station

Feature Stories


Jorge Vanegas, director of the Center for Housing and Urban Development at Texas A&M University poses at the Mexican Consulate in El Paso with Mexican Consul Juan Carlos Foncerrada Berumen and Pema Garcia, regional director the Colonias Program Western Region.

CHUD helps Mexican Consulate
open ‘Windows of Health’ program

The Center of Housing and Urban Development (CHUD) at Texas A&M University’s College of Architecture is collaborating with the Institute of Mexicans Abroad and the Mexican Consulate in El Paso, Texas in the implementation of a new pilot program aimed at protecting the rights and well-being of Mexican nationals in the United States.

The program, Ventanilla de Salud, or Windows of Health, provides bilingual health-care education and advocacy to Mexicans in Texas, while helping them take advantage of the myriad services provided by the Mexican government through the Mexican Consulate in El Paso. The office assists an average of 150-200 Mexican nationals per day with issues as diverse as health care counseling and assistance with insurance policies.

CHUD’s role in the collaborative program is funded by a $29,000 grant from the Mexican government's Institute of Mexicans Abroad, which allows CHUD outreach workers to act as liaisons between the Hispanic residents of El Paso’s rural and urban communities and the Ventanilla de Salud program.

CHUD serves the region through its Western Rio Grande Region Colonias Program, which is designed to assist residents of low-income settlements, or colonias, in improving the quality of their lives. The program works in partnership with local government, state and federal agencies, and nonprofit organizations to promotes the active involvement of residents in strengthening the social infrastructure of the community.

For more information about CHUD’s partnership with the Mexican Consulate’s Ventanilla de Salud program, contact Pema Garcia, associate director of CHUD’s Western Rio Grande Region at 877-860-9528.


LAUP Lecture Series presents
three lectures by Lee Einsweiler

Lee Einsweiler, vice president of Duncan Associates in Austin, a nation land development firm, will present three lectures at the College of Architecture on Monday, April 17 as part of the 2006 Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning Lecture Series.

Einsweiler’s first presentation, “Implementing the Law: An Introduction to Plan Implementation” is set for 8 – 9:30 a.m. in George Rogers’ class, Langford C 205; lunch will be served during Einsweiler’s lunchtime lecture, “Entering the Job Market,” set for 12:30 – 2 p.m. in the Langford B Exhibit Hall; and 2:30 – 4 p.m. he will talk about “Embedding Design in Local Regulations” in the Preston Geren auditorium in Langford B.

Einsweiler heads Duncan Associate’s Austin code drafting operation and serves as project manager for clients throughout the country and especially in the southeastern United States. He has been heavily involved in drafting development regulations aimed at preserving water quality and the environment. For two years, he taught planning and regulation for growth management as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Community and Regional Planning at the University of Texas.

The LAUP Lecture Series is open to the public. For more information, contact Clarissa Garcia cgarcia@archmail.tamu.edu or George Rogers grogers@neo.tamu.edu.


Kirk Hamilton
Professor-architect is proponent of
evidence-based healthcare design

Texas A&M University architecture professor Kirk Hamilton is a man on a mission: he's determined to make his discipline more rigorous by focusing on objectively measuring the impacts of designers' choices on the environments and occupants of the structures they build.

Hamilton, a registered architect who specialized in hospital design for 30 years and was an owner of a 120-person firm before joining Texas A&M, also earned a masters degree in organizational development, a process that convinced him to embrace the tenets of evidence-based design.

"My work in practice and my studies at Pepperdine University convinced me that hospital designers must work like doctors, relying on evidence as the basis of their decisions," Hamilton says. "If the profession refuses to evolve in this direction, we run the risk of becoming just highly educated draftsmen. We explore the relationship between evidence-based design of healthcare facilities and measurable performance of the organizations which use those facilities, and we must report our findings."

Read complete story:
http://communications.tamu.edu/
newsarchives/06/041206news-6.html


U&RS Ph.D. students place first
in Research Week competition

Research conducted by two doctoral students in Urban and Regional Science, Zhenghong “Tommy” Tang and Liang Chang, earned first place honors and other awards in their respective categories at Texas A&M University’s 2006 Student Research Week (SRW) competition. Both are research assistants in the Hazards Reduction and Recovery Center.

Tang, who hails from Hunan, China, presented an oral presentation, on “measuring strategic environmental assessment capacities of local land use comprehensive planning in California.” In addition to first place honors, Tang’s presentation earned the SRW Interdisciplinary Research Recognition Award.

Liang ChangLiang Chang, from Nanyang, China, earned first place for his social science poster presentation, "A Hurricane Wind Risk Assessment Methodology." He also garnered the Lone Star Graduate Diversity Colloquium Choice Award and an SRW Interdisciplinary Research Recognition Award. Chang is a graduate fellow in the HRRC’s Sustainable Coastal Margins Program.

Also, Sudha Arlikatti from Kerala, India, another HRRC research assistant and URS Ph.D. student, earned third place at the SRW competition for her presentation, “The Role of Trust and Stakeholder Interactions in Seismic Safety.” She has accepted a faculty post at the University of North Texas, and will be starting in the fall.


Guariglia is PKP outstanding junior

Stephanie Guariglia, bachelor of environmental design student from Austin, Texas, was recognized April 15 as an outstanding junior by Phi Kappa Phi, the oldest and largest interdisciplinary honor society in the United States.


Paper on climate change planning
garners international recognition

A paper exploring planning strategies for adapting to global climate change, by Himanshu Grover, master of urban planning student at Texas A&M, has recently earned two special recognitions.

Grover’s work earned the “Best Paper Award,” in a special session on Global Climate Change at the Ecological Integration Student Research Symposium help April 1 at Texas A&M. Additionally, Grover was invited to present the paper at the Planners for Tomorrow Forum (P4T), this June at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Grover’s paper included research conducted by the Environment Planning and Sustainability Research Unit (EPSRU) of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at the Texas A&M University College of Architecture. The research was supported by the Institute for Science, Technology & Public Policy at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, also at Texas A&M.

“While the recent scientific findings validate the changing climate, the field of urban planning has so far remained insensitive to the issue,” Grover said. “This research incorporates climate change research within local planning initiatives for urban sustainability, and identifies specific tools and measures that can help urban settlements adapt to changing climate.”

A native of India, Grover earned a bachelor’s degree in physical planning at School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi. He worked for six years with a non-governmental organization in India before beginning urban planning studies at Texas A&M.

The MUP program, he said, “offers a unique opportunity to integrate research on urban and regional planning, natural hazard management and sustainability. ”

This June’s P4T Forum in Vancouver, is the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Planning Students CAPS. This year, CAPS has invited planning students from around the world to help generate student recommendations that will be presented at the World Planners Congress (June 17-20) and the United Nation ’s World Urban Form on Planners for Tomorrow (June 19-23).


Administrative Notes

Computer staff offers weekly IT Q&A

Computer ClassWant to learn how to schedule a meeting using Microsoft Outlook? Wondering how to take advantage of the “shared” drive on the College of Architecture server? Answers to these and even more perplexing computer technology problems will be provided in computer services’ new question and answer forums to be held 1 - 2 p.m. every Tuesday and Wednesday in Langford A 217.

During these sessions arranged for college faculty and staff, Yurii Havey, the college's senior microcomputer and LAN specialist, will lead informal discussions, demonstrate software and provide advice for utilizing the various services and applications supported by the college.

"You can e-mail me questions ahead of time or just show up during the scheduled times and I will do my best to answer your questions or work to find the answers, said Havey. "The complexity of the systems prevents anyone one person from knowing everything, but I will do my best to find answers in a timely fashion."

Performance evaluation process

As a reminder to those in supervisory roles, annual performance evaluations must be completed between March 1 and May 31, 2006, in accordance with University Rule 33.99.03.M1. Information regarding the evaluation process can be viewed at http://rules-saps.tamu.edu/PDFs/33.99.03.M1.pdf.

Employees may now receive a merit raise based on performance that is rated at the level of "meets expectations" or higher overall rating. Historically, the rating must have been at the level of "exceeds expectations" or higher overall rating. This information supersedes the criteria used for awarding annual merit increases in the past. All other existing criteria for awarding merit raises must be met according to the budget guidelines and the rule governing merit raises.

A tutorial is accessible at http://hr.tamu.edu/ed/tutorial.

Questions regarding the annual performance evaluation process or the new criteria for awarding merit raises should be directed to Employee Development at edd@tamu.edu or 845-4153.

Status report on computer
laboratories - as of 4/10/06

Lab

No. Units Operational Non-Operational
107A 24 24 0
107B 30 30 0
119 36 36 0
310C 16 16 0
347 14 14 0
348 27 27 0
446 9 9 0
Reed McDonald 15 15 0
Printers 107 &119 2 2 0
Printers 122J 2 2 0
Plotters 4 4 0
Projectors 4 3 1*

Reasons for not being operational

* 1 - Projector stolen.


This Week's Calendar

Today - April 13

Lighting Exposed -- Lighting Show Poster
Click image for larger view.

Lighting Exposed — ARCH 433 Lighting Show: Jill Mulholland's ARCH 433 class will set up their lighting installations in the Langford Gallery and throughout the Langford Architecture Center Complex. The show, "Lighting Exposed," will run from 9 p.m. - midnight. In addition to the student work, three case studies from Mulholland's Ph.D. project will be presented in the gallery in video format running on continuous five-minute loops. On Friday night, Mulholland's outdoor installation can be viewed after dark at the Riverside Campus. For details and to arrange meeting at the gate to gain entrance to the Riverside Campus, contact Jill Mulholland at jill.mulholland@gmail.com.

MUP Professional Advisory Council meets 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. in the Langford A Gallery. For more information, contact Clarissa Garcia at 845-1019 or cgarcia@archmail.tamu.edu.

Department of Architecture Scholarship Awards Banquet & Ceremony is set for 6 - 10 p.m. at the Pebble Creek Country Club. The event is still being planned, but there will be a fee to attend and reservations will be required. Inside Track will update the relevant information when it is available. In the meantime, direct your queries to Melinda Randle 847-8918 or mrandle@archone.tamu.edu.

Friday - April 14

Mulholland's Riverside Campus Light Installation: The outdoor portion of Jill Mulholland's Ph.D. light project will be displayed after dark at the Texas A&M Riverside Campus. Anyone interested in viewing the project should meet Jill at the gate around 9 p.m. Please e-mail her at at jill.mulholland@gmail.com for details. The Ph.D. project at the Riverside campus, as well as five case studies, were funded by a $20,000 Nuckolls Fund Grant. The projects will be evaluated by lighting experts Charles Linn, Marietta Millet and Dick Peters. Three of the case studies will be presented with other student work in the Langford Gallery as part of Thursday night's light show.

AIAS Film & Architecture Series: AIAS will screen "The Passion of Joan of Arc" from 6 - 8 p.m. in the Preston Geren Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Joan of Arc Carl Dreyer’s 1928 masterpiece about the trial and death of France’s 15th Century warrior-maiden reverses the cliché that "life imitates art. With its stunning camerawork and striking compositions, Dreyer’s film convinced the world that movies could be art. Renée Falconetti gives one of the greatest performances ever recorded on film, as the young maiden who died for God and France. Long thought to have been lost to fire, the original version was miraculously found in perfect condition in 1981—in a Norwegian mental institution For more information, please contact Bradley Angell/979-571-4369/bangell@tamu.edu

Wednesday - April 19

"Texas Chapels in the Landscape of Light" with Dr. Nora Laos from the College of Architecture at the University of Houston. Laos holds a Ph.D. in architecture and a M.F.A. from Princeton University; a M.Arch and B.S. in architectural studies from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. The lecture will be held 5 – 7 p.m. in the Preston M. Geren Auditorium.

Annual Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning Awards Banquet: 6 - 10 p.m. at the Briarcrest Country Club. The planning for the event is under way, invitations will be mailed closer to the banquet date. For more information, contact Clarissa Garcia at 845-1019 or cgarcia@archmail.tamu.edu.


SPRING 2006: CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS:

Friday - April 21

Nielsen-Gammon & Fuqing Zhang“A Case Study of Tropical Storm Allison (2001)” — a presentation by professors Fuqing Zhang and John Nielsen-Gammon of Texas A&M’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences is slated for 10 a.m. Friday, April 21 in Langford C 205. The lecture is sponsored by the Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center at the Texas A&M University College of Architecture.

Friday & Saturday – May 5 & 6

Viz-a-GoGo 13 — “Your Luck's About to Change:” The 13th annual showcase of student work from the Department of Architecture’s Master of Science in Visualization Science program, Viz-a-GoGo, runs May 1 - May 6 in the Rudder Exhibit Hall. The “flat-work” exhibit, featuring paintings, figure drawings, photography and work from the Spring 2006 Artists in Residents workshops will be on display throughout the week. On Friday and Saturday, May 5 and 6, the show escalates with student demonstrations at 4 p.m. followed by screenings of 2-D and 3-D time-based works at 7 p.m. in Rudder Theatre.

For this, the show’s 13th year, the students have chosen the theme “good luck, bad luck and superstitions.” In keeping with the theme, the 2006 digital emcee for the screening will be a voodoo doll. Also slated for the Friday and Saturday night finales are guest performances by a Texas A&M dance troupe and the percussion ensemble, “Percussion Studio.” There’s no charge for the event, but the show’s creators warn that some material may not be appropriate for young children.

TEX-GRAPH logoTEX-GRAPH 2006: 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. in the Preston M. Geren Auditorium and Langford B Exhibit Hall. Graphics researchers and educators from Texas gather for this mini-symposium to present current work based on computer graphics and interactive techniques. The planning for the event is under way. More details will be forthcoming. For more information, contact Margaret Lomas at 845-3465 or marge@viz.tamu.edu.

Saturday - May 6

LAUP Department Picnic for faculty, staff and students and their families. The location and time of this event has not yet been established. For more details or suggestions, contact June Withers at 845-1046 or jwithers@archone.tamu.edu.

Tuesday - May 9



“Over the Hedge” —movie and special guest: The Visualization Laboratory is inviting College of Architecture students, faculty and staff to an exclusive early screening of “Over the Hedge,” the latest animated feature from DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. As a special treat, moviegoers will have an opportunity to meet and speak with Mike Fry, co-creator of the “Over the Hedge” syndicated comic strip, on which the movie is based. The film is scheduled for 7 p.m., Tuesday May 9 at the Cinemark Hollywood U.S.A. theater in College Station. Advanced tickets will be available while they last from the Visualization Laboratory’s main office, located on the fourth floor of Langford C. A notice will be e-mailed when tickets become available.

“Over the Hedge,” the Dreamworks film, follows a band of woodland animals as they learn to co-exist with — even exploit — a strange new world called suburbia. The comic strip of the same name and theme is written and drawn by Michael Fry and T. Lewis, who have known each other since 1992 when they both contributed to the “Mickey Mouse” comic strip. The duo work on their “Over the Hedge” strip via the telephone and the fax machine.

For movie details and previews, visit:
http://www.overthehedgemovie.com/

To learn more about the syndicated cartoon strip, visit:
http://www.unitedfeatures.com/ufsapp/ viewFeature.do?id=99
or
http://www.comics.com/comics/hedge/

Thursday - May 11

COSC Graduation Reception: 1 - 8 p.m. in Langford A Atrium. For more information, contact Ann Eastwood at 845-0289 or aeastwood@archone.tamu.edu.

Saturday - May 13

2006 Houston Art Car Parade: A car painted by Mary Saslow's students will be in the parade. For more information, contact Mary Saslow at saslow@viz.tamu.edu.

Tuesday - May 30

Secret Pal Luncheon: 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. in Langford B Exhibit Hall exclusively for Secret Pal participants. For more information, contact Susie Billings at 847-9357 or sBillings@archmail.tamu.edu.


Viz film screening held in Bryan

A scene from the Viz Lab's 3-D animated short film, “3in1,” plays on the outside wall of Square One restaurant in downtown Bryan last Friday night while a fire dancer performs. The screening kicked off a three-week exhibition at Square One featuring 2-D work that shows the animation process behind the student's film, as well as, "Art from Nature," a series of 30” x 40” archival prints created by students who participated in artist LiQin Tan's Spring 2006 Artist in Residence Workshop.